Commission hails success of MERA project
The European Commission has hailed the MERA 92 project as an impressive success that has more than achieved its objectives, in the proceedings of the Bratislava conference on 10 and 11 December 1996, which are now available. The conference allowed participants in the European Commission's MERA 92 project to present their results within the fields of environment (forestry monitoring, land degradation mapping) and agricultural statistics (area frame sampling and agrometeorological modelling). The work, carried out through the European Commission's Space Applications Institute (SAI), focused on the PHARE multi-country environment programme for Mars and environmentally related applications (MERA project). At the outset of the project, there was a wide gap in the use of advanced techniques, such as Earth observation, geographic information systems, and modelling activities, between the countries of central and Eastern Europe and the Member States of the European Union. By the final phases of the work, this gap had been diminished through, for example, the provision of equipment, transfer of expertise, scientific and technical exchanges, and thematic studies in soil erosion, forestry, and crop inventories. The publication includes the text of the opening statement from the conference and an introduction to MERA project implementation in central and Eastern Europe, from regional to national and multi-country level. It includes information on the results of projects that were presented to the conference in the following sessions: - Session 1: Land degradation, forest and environment; - Session 2: Area frame sampling and regional inventories; - Session 3: Agrometeorological modelling and crop yield forecasting; The publication also includes the conference programme and a list of the conference participants.