The 2nd Joint Project Team Meeting (JPTM) for establishing the Disaster Management Support System in the Asia-Pacific Region was held on June 27-28, 2006 at Nai Lert Park Bangkok Hotel, Thailand, organized by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in cooperation with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and the Geo-Information and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA).

The objective of the 2nd JPTM was to confirm the status and evolution of the Sentinel-Asia Project initiated at the 1st JPTM held in Hanoi, Vietnam, from 14 to 15 February this year.

The meeting was attended by 124 people from 54 organizations in 19 countries and from 8 International Organizations.

The participants were welcomed by Dr.Vichit Satharanond, Chairman of GISTDA Executive, Mr. Hideshi Kozawa, Associate Executive Director of JAXA, and Mr. Wu Guoxing, Chief of the Space Technology Applications Section, ICT Division, UNESCAP.

Following the keynote speeches by Dr. Keiji Tachikawa, President of JAXA, and Dr. Thongchai Charuppat, Director of GISTDA, the participants made active and constructive discussions, and the results were as described below:

1. A better understanding of SA System by JPT members was obtained through a demonstration of its prototype. As a result, it was recognized to be necessary to take the Internet bandwidth of each country into consideration in designing SA System.

2. The member organizations reported their Action Plans for data distribution, user interfaces, capacity building and so on.

3. The Wild Fire Working Group and the Flood Working Group have been established after their Action Plans were agreed upon.

4. The status of ALOS operation, including disaster observation, was reported and the operational interfaces for ALOS observation requests were clarified.

5. Training programs for SA will be finalized and be carried out, as well as the secretariat will give out and disseminate developed training materials.

6. Roles of the each node, in the SA Implementation Plan, were clarified. The participant lists of the each node for SA were updated: 44 organizations from 18 countries and 7 international organizations confirmed to participate in the Node(s).

7. Sentinel-Asia will begin to operate in October 2006, and the Sentinel Asia project will be reported at APRSAF-13 in November, 2006.