The Space Applications Working Group (SAWG) was established following the 20th anniversary of the APRSAF, and its first meeting was held at APRSAF-21 in Tokyo in December 2014. At APRSAF-26 in Japan, we would like to discuss the following topics:

• Information sharing regarding best practices related to disaster management and climate change monitoring, and contributing to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Asia-Pacific region.
• Report on completed Space Applications For Environment (SAFE) Evolution, status of SAFE projects, and preliminary discussion for potential new SAFE projects.
• Report on the recent progresses of Sentinel Asia Step 3.
• Regional satellite data sharing using data platforms for enhancing multilateral collaboration among space applications.

The SAWG promotes two initiatives-Sentinel Asia for disaster management, and SAFE for environmental monitoring-with the aim of realizing concrete activities for the above topics. Details are as follows.

1) Sentinel Asia Sentinel Asia is an international cooperation platform in which space agencies, disaster management agencies, and international agencies collaborate on a voluntary basis to combat natural disasters in the Asia-Pacific region by applying remote sensing and Web-GIS technologies. As of May 31, 2019, the number of Sentinel Asia member organizations amounted to 110. Since its launch in 2006, Sentinel Asia has evolved step by step. Based on the successful completion of previous steps, in 2013 APRSAF-19 endorsed and recommended that Sentinel Asia proceed to Step 3, which aims at covering the entire disaster management cycle. Moreover, APRSAF-21 in Tokyo, recommended that Sentinel Asia establish a Steering Committee to address strategic maters. Under the leadership of the Steering Committee, Sentinel Asia established its ten-year Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan was approved at the Joint Project Team Meeting of Sentinel Asia, held in Awaji, Japan, in 2018, and then endorsed at APRSAF-25 in Singapore. The status of the Strategic Plan is a living document, and members of Sentinel Asia are expected to address its actions jointly by reviewing and revising them, where necessary. The SAWG this year will witness the most recent progress made in Sentinel Asia activities.

2) SAFE (Space Applications for Environment)
SAFE is a voluntary initiative for environmental monitoring that was endorsed at APRSAF-15. Environmental monitoring is an important activity in addressing climate change, which has a strong influence not only on agriculture and water resources, but also on natural disasters. SAFE has been contributing to the development of space applications for agriculture and water resources for the past 10 years.
Since APRSAF-24 in 2017, a SAFE Evolution discussion has been conducted to enhance multilateral collaboration from bilateral collaboration. The conclusion of SAFE Evolution will be reported to show the new SAFE framework for space applications. Best practices and knowledge in the workshop will be reported in the SAWG to encourage the promotion of space applications in the Asia-Pacific region.

3) Thematic sessions
In order to contribute to the SDGs, the Paris Agreement, and the Sendai Framework in the Asia-Pacific region, the compiling and publishing of best practices of space applications with respect to climate change in Asia are key activities. In particular, the application fields of disaster, agriculture and water resources, which are strongly influenced by climate change, constitute the prioritized social benefit areas of the SAWG. Therefore, at the thematic sessions of SAWG, achievements in these fields of application in different regions and countries will be reported as well as knowledge sharing, capacity building and data-sharing activities using new IT technologies such as data platforms. However, there is no intention to limit the discussions to these areas, and presentations proposing new activities for the SAWG, especially those highly important to participating countries, are also welcomed.