GISCA'17 in Dushanbe successfully completed

The GIS in Central Asia Conference – GISCA 2017 under the motto ”GIScience for Sustainable Development" was held August 28-30, 2017 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The main objectives of this English language conference were to bring together GIS academics, researchers and practitioners from Central Asian and other countries and to encourage international cooperation and knowledge exchange in GIS education and science. GISCA 2017 was organized by and at the Institute of Water Problems, Hydropower and Ecology (IWPHE), Academy of Sciences of Republic of Tajikistan (AS RT) jointly with the Austria-Central Asia Centre for GIScience (ACA*GIScience) and the GIScience Commission, Austrian Academy of Sciences. 

The organizers are grateful for sponsorship and support from by Trimble, the Eurasia-Pacific Uninet and the Research Centre for Ecology and Environment of Central Asia (Dushanbe). The GISCA conference series and its publications are managed by ACA*GIScience with support from Eurasia-Pacific Uninet and the ÖAW GIScience Commission. 

A post-conference workshop on "Geo-ICT for nature-based tourism and recreation" was conducted by Dr. Sabine Hennig from Z_GIS. More than 80 conference participants from European and Central Asian countries have shared scientific research presentations and discussions, experiences and findings of international initiatives on GIS education and research. 

On the occasion of GISCA’17, ACA*GIScience will again publish a special issue on GIS (including Remote Sensing, Spatial Statistics and related geospatial applications) in Central Asia. The issue will be published in the International Journal of Geoinformatics (journals.sfu.ca/ijg). The deadline to submit complete papers for review is October 15. For any questions, please contact the editors by email . We are looking forward to a high quality journal issue representing the state of the art of geospatial methods and applications across the Central Asia region.