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Free Open and Source Software (FOSS) has sometimes been accused of being viral, lanced in helpless campaigns by few software companies making users wary of choosing free licensed products. The truth is, however, not that the software products are viral but that a worldwide increasing number of programmers, software developers, and, last but not least, scientists are obviously infected by this exciting FOSS virus. The generic and attractive idea beyond proper and clearly defined rights and duties of free software licensed products is the advantage of utilizing and communicating the development communitys knowledge base. Doing this, the design of community based software goes back to the core of what science is for, the extension and spreading of knowledge, probably best covered by the German word for science: Wissenschaft (i.e. making or creating knowledge). Although the track record of open source software roots in the hacker culture of U.S. computer science laboratories of the early 1970ies, FOSS rapidly evolved and today is a well established component of scientific IT-environments, seldom stand alone but almost everywhere merged with proprietary software. Particularly in those disciplines, which face the challenging task to handle and analyse huge amounts of spatial data, the development and increasing availability of powerful Free and Open GIS fostered and affected many fields of geoscientific endeavour and education. The System for Automated Geoscientific Analyses (SAGA) is a still young but fast growing child of the Free GIS family. SAGA was created and developed by my working-group Geosystem Analysis, a close-knit group of scientists from the Gttingen University and scilands GmbH Gttingen. Its current state of implementation is due to the creativeness and engagement of the core set of developers; namely Rdiger Kthe, Andre Ringeler, Christian Caro and, in particular Olaf Conrad, who shouldered the main and most significant programming work. However, SAGA would not have reached this level of sophistication without that multitude of methodical innovations cooperatively worked out by the working-group as a whole in context with national and international environment related research projects. Today, SAGA increasingly benefits from the ideas and notable contributions of SAGA users and developers all over the world. Although this aspect is unfortunately not sufficiently represented in this issue due to the short time span for article submission, the collection of 10 articles yields a fair amount of insight in the application scopes and opportunities of SAGA. Today we are happy and indeed a little proud to invite GIS-scientists to join us in going further steps ahead. Welcome to SAGA Gttingen, June 2006 Jrgen Bhner
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TABLE OF CONTENT
BOCK, M., CYFFKA, B., HAAS, F. & STAMMEL, B.: Remediation of the Danube floodplain between Neuburg and Ingolstadt (Bavaria/Germany) GIS supported modelling of ecological flooding .................... 1 BHNER, J. & SELIGE, T.: Spatial prediction of soil attributes using terrain analysis and climate regionalisation.............................................................................................. 13 BHNER, J., SELIGE, T & RINGELER, A.: Image segmentation using representativeness analysis and region growing ........... 29 CONRAD, O.: SAGA program structure and current state of implementation.............................. 39 HALL, G., CRATCHLEY, R. & JOHNSON, S.: The use of SAGA-GIS in an integrated meteorological/hydrological model for the Mawddach river catchment, North Wales ..................................................... 53 HECKMANN, T. & BECHT, M.: Statistical disposition modelling of mass movements .............................................. 61 KERKHOF, H. & BECHT, M.: Natural hazard research in the Bavarian Alps - a case study of Mittenwald (Germany) ................................................................................................................ 75 KTHE, R. & BOCK, M.: Development and use in practice of SAGA modules for high quality analysis of geodata ................................................................................................... 85 SELIGE, T., BHNER, J. & RINGELER, R.: Processing of SRTM X-SAR Data to correct interferometric elevation models for land surface process applications............................................................ 97 WICHMANN, V. & BECHT, M.: Rockfall modelling: methods and model application in an alpine basin (Reintal, Germany) ................................................................................................. 105 APPENDIX ................................................................................................................ 117
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