The IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS) was held in Melbourne, Australia from July 21 to 26, 2013. More than 300 experts from China attended the Symposium. During the symposium, Professor Guo Huadong, Director-General of the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI), accepted the exclusive interview from the ABC Radio Australia (Chinese), introducing China’s progress and cooperation with Australia in remote sensing.As an expert in remote sensing in China and academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Professor Guo Huadong told the reporter that China had set up the stably operating remote sensing satellite system (RSSS) and that the remote sensing data had played a critical role in each field. In a closely cooperative relationship, China and Australia learned from each other and made quite a few achievements in the remote sensing field.

According to Professor Guo, China started to develop the remote sensing technology in the 1970s. After 30 years’ development, it built up a remote sensing monitoring system including four series of satellites in terms of meteorology, resources, environment and disaster mitigation, and oceanography. The remote sensing data acquired by the system have been widely used in each field. Meanwhile, China also launched a series of scientific satellites. Currently, it is developing the satellites which can be used to monitor carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with a view to addressing the climate changes. In the future, the country will launch the satellites to monitor electromagnetic properties and provide scientific basis for earthquake forecast. Besides, its spacecrafts of the Shenzhou series carried various remote sensors to observe the earth.

China has built up 10-odd ground stations for remote sensing satellites which receive the data not only from its own remote sensing satellites but also from foreign ones. These data have been widely applied to diverse fields like agriculture, forestry, environment, city, ocean, and plotting, as well as the new area of global climate change in recent years. All of these applications have proved to be productive. In the era of globalization, China’s remote sensing data has also made great contributions to the whole world in many aspects like global crop yield estimation and global water distribution. Also being used to help China’s disaster reduction, the remote sensing technology has played significant roles in monitoring and evaluation of disaster conditions, according to Professor Guo.

Regarding the remote sensing cooperation between China and Australia, Professor Guo explained that unlike China who launched its own satellites, Australia built the ground stations to receive data from international remote sensing satellites (including China’s) for domestic environmental monitoring, resource surveys, and other purposes.

In Professor Guo’s view, China and Australia have maintained long-standing cooperation in both practical and theoretical remote sensing fields. Their partnership becomes more significant particularly when the whole world is addressing climate changes. The two countries, located in northern and southern hemisphere respectively, are bestowed with more cooperation opportunities in this regard.