Editor's note: Geotech’s power is in its application
The geospatial profession has long operated on the cusp of the latest technological developments. Perhaps the wide range of applications of geotech or the variety of professions which employ it helped advance it to become a fundamental tool to use in the modern world.
This issue of
PositionIT, for example includes an article explaining how machine learning works, as well as a novel case study showing how it is used to protect endangered elephants. Geotech also plays a key role in automation, as the article on selecting a GNSS receiver for machine control shows. Wits’ DigiMine plans to use similar geotech to create distance between miners and risk.
Geotech’s power is in its application. William Pollard, an English clergyman, famously said “It is not always what we know or analyse before we make a decision that makes it a great decision. It is what we do after we make the decision to implement and execute it that makes it a good decision.”
A great example of geotech’s potential benefit is the CSIR’s recently launched
Green Book, a geospatial-based, online climate adaptation guide for anyone from policy makers to geo-experts to incorporate in their work. Created by 50 multi-disciplinary researchers, this peer-reviewed platform is a powerful and easy-to-use tool to adapt to climate change. It would be a terrible waste not to act on new and well-structured information.
