Dear Distinguished Guests, Ladies, and Gentlemen:
On behalf of Taiwan Group on Earth Observations (TGEO), I am delighted to welcome you all to the ninth International Conference on Earth Observations and Social Impacts, ICEO&SI 2019. This conference is jointly hosted by National Cheng-Kung University (NCKU) and TGEO. The success of the conference ultimately depends on many people who have worked hard with us on planning and organizing both the program and supporting all the other arrangements. In here, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to NCKU for preparing the excellent program, venue, and many festive activities.
The ICEO&SI was initiated by TGEO in 2010 and has become an annual platform for the people who care about the sustainable development of the earth to exchange and share knowledge and experiences; essentially to find the solutions to resolve the threats the human beings are facing nowadays; and to provide the solutions to the policy makers for further actions. Ten areas of critical importance to the sustainability of global environment and societal welfare of our concerns include Natural Disasters, Health, Energy, Climate Change, Ecosystems, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Water Resources, Meteorology, and related industries, which are of great concern by the people, governments, and private sectors, as well as the Group on Earth Observations. In 2016, the United Nation proposed 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) urging people and countries to take transformative steps to achieve these goals. It is interesting to note that many of the SDGs coincide with the topics included in this Conference. For promoting the international academic and societal influence since 2011, the great intellectual works accumulated from ICEO&SIs have been turned into publications of journal special issues, such as Remote Sensing, Atmospheric Research, Advances in Meteorology, Terrestrial, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Journal of Marine Science and Technology, … etc. Therefore, your participation is indeed carrying out cutting-edge research in Earth Observation Sciences. As many of you are aware of, the international Future Earth program such as Future Earth Coasts has just launched to function as a global research platform to provide the knowledge needed to support transformations toward sustainability. I am certain that our conference will contribute great efforts to the Future Earth program.
Finally, on behalf of TGEO, I hereby express my wholehearted thanks to all the organizers and everyone who has contributed efforts to this conference. And “9” is a very lucky number, representing the sustainability, success and promotion for Chinese people, so we hope you can share and enjoy this feeling with us in this“9” ninth anniversary for ICEO&SI. May all your wishes come true and all of you have an enjoyable stay in this ancient city, Tainan, and overall success of the ICEO&SI 2019 happens. See you soon.
Ming-An LEE
Distinguished Professor, National Taiwan Ocean University
President, TGEO |
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