In 2006 a large number of articles could be published which reduced the journal's backlog in publication, the impact factor further increased and Ling Bian started as associate editor for optical remote sensing papers.

New associate editor

As of January 2006 Ling Bian (University of Buffalo, U.S.A.) succeeded Marguerite Madden as the associate editor. Ling Bian will handle the manuscripts on optical remote sensing applications.

Processing pipeline

After the numerous review requests organised in 2005, many manuscripts could be accepted and published in 2006. In total 47 papers have been published (compared to 20 and 22 in 2004 and 2005) in 9 issues. Because of this the backlog in publishing could be reduced from 5 to 2 issues.

Theme issues

Three theme issues appeared in 2006. Theme issue 60/3 was devoted to "Extraction of topographic information from high-resolution satellite imagery" and edited by Manfred Schroeder, Clive Fraser, and Alain Baudoin. Guest editors Christian Heipke, Jon Mills, and Karsten Jacobsen organised theme issue 60/6 on "Digital aerial cameras". The call for papers on "Airborne and spaceborne traffic monitoring" attracted many papers. The resulting double issue 61/3-4 was edited by Stefan Hinz, Uwe Stilla and Richard Bamler. Currently, papers for theme issues on distributed geo-informatics and terrestrial laser scanning are under review. Call for papers for three theme issues to be published in 2008 have been prepared.

Impact factor

The 2005 impact factor as published by Thomson Scientific was 1.674 making the ISPRS Journal the 2^nd ranked journal among the remote sensing journals. The impact factor is, however, likely to fluctuate in the next years as the index is based on a relatively low number of published articles in 2003 and 2004 and citations to those papers. The number of total citations was at the same level as last year (447 vs. 452 in 2004).

Elsevier

Again several people changed jobs after a reorganisation at Elsevier. Nicolette van Dijk is now Publisher and responsible for marketing of the journal. Christine Erb, Publishing Editor, is my contact person for all matters concerning the publication of the journal.

Journal subscription fees

Because the journal was behind schedule and the average number of pages per issue (around 70) is below the number of pages as specified in the contract between the ISPRS and Elsevier (85), Elsevier agreed consolidate the subscription fees for 2007 at the level of 2006.

Heleva Award

The Heleva Award jury completed the selection of the best paper of volume 59 (2004). The winner will be announced shortly in the ISPRS Journal, the ISPRS Highlights, and the ISPRS page in GIM.

George Vosselman, Editor-in-Chief