The 9^th progress meeting for Dragon Program, a cooperation initiative between the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and the European Space Agency, was held on February 20-22, 2006 at the Chinese Academy of Forestry. The meeting was co-chaired by LI Zengyuan, from the Chinese side, and Dr. Yves-Louis Desnos from the EU side. Prof. LI and Dr. Desnos briefed the meeting of data distribution, training, and the newly added application of space technology in organizing an Olympic Games, as defined by the program. 16 lead experts reported progresses achieved in their respective fields, including agricultural applications, hydraulic disasters watch and water resources management, forests mapping, paddy rice monitoring, forest fires, marine studies, topographic mapping, drought watch, air pollution watch, ozone watch, sea water color study, and application of space technology in organizing an Olympic Games. Speakers also displayed the latest research and application findings achieved since the Santorini meeting held in 2005, including retrieval applications of polarimetric SAR data tree, validating polarimetric SAR classification methods using AIRSAR data, regional forest mapping using multiple temporal ASAR data, application of Doppler radar in sea wind sounding, ASAR data based fast acquisition of flood disaster information and water resources management technology, InSAR data based ground sediment watch, SCIAMACHY data based trace gas extracting algorithms and simulating calculation of radiation transmission model, MERIS data based marine and atmospheric parameter retrieval, landslide watch for the Three Gorge area using permanent SAR scattering measuring, paddy rice monitoring using both remote sensing data and crop growth models, and application of ground observational data in urban sports venues management and planning, and in offshore sea surface and winds watch for water sports. These findings have been applied in resources surveys, and environment and disasters watches, with fine results.

So far, the European Space Agency has provided 6468 frames of ENVISAT and ERS SAR data to Chinese side free of charge, of which 4291 frames of ASAR data, 726 MERIS data, and 1451 ERS SAR data. During the meeting, both sides had discussions of individual research topics, problems in applications, possible solutions and future study orientations.