Base Maps of Arid Areas: Special Research Project 69, Subproject D 1, Period 1981-1984

Geoscientific research in arid areas — like in other crisis areas in the world — is burdened with a special responsibility: the results will influence decisions concerning land development and the fate of many people. The possible consequences of such research activities should give cause to devote utmost care and to proceed with seriousness in all phases of the research process. In the scope of a special research project high-quality results can be expected. Moreover, due to the concentration of activities of multiple geoscientific disciplines in the same area, cartographic research is given a rarely occurring opportunity to cooperate with various disciplines. Best experiences from such cooperation in the centres of cartographic research at the Technische Fachhochschule Berlin are already available, also from several projects in arid areas. A particularly close cooperation exists between the cartographers at the Technische Fachhochschule and the remote sensing department at the Free University Berlin. Cooperation with the Egyptian partner of the Special Research Project, the General Petroleum Company, Cairo, has turned out to be very pleasant and to mutual advantage. Results have been achieved jointly, which no one of the involved parties would have been able to produce alone.