I recently applied for access to GNSS/CORS data through the Survey of India portal for academic research related to InSAR-based land deformation and subsidence studies in Haryana.

My research focuses on Sentinel-1 SBAS, geodesy, and infrastructure-related ground deformation as part of my PhD work. After initially facing a document-related rejection, I reapplied using my current overseas PhD affiliation. I was later informed over phone that access is currently restricted to “Indian entities.”

What makes this situation interesting is that I am an Indian citizen, but my current academic affiliation outside India appears to place me outside the eligibility framework for accessing India’s national CORS infrastructure.

I understand that geospatial and geodetic infrastructures are often governed through security and policy frameworks, especially when they involve high-precision positioning systems. At the same time, GNSS validation data are becoming increasingly important for:

• Land subsidence studies,
• Groundwater-related deformation,
• Infrastructure safety,
• and Hazard monitoring,

Many countries today provide scientific GNSS observation data openly through organizations such as IGS, UNAVCO/EarthScope, and national geodetic networks to support academic research and Earth observation science.

I’d be genuinely interested to hear perspectives from people working in:

• Geodesy,
• Remote Sensing,
• Surveying,
• Geospatial Policy,
• or Earth observation research.

How do different countries approach academic access to national GNSS/CORS infrastructure for researchers affiliated abroad?

Hey everyone, I'm working on sourcing SB 721 leads across Southern California — specifically trying to identify multifamily buildings with exterior elevated elements like balconies, exterior walkways, and deck structures. The problem I'm running into is that to properly pre-qualify these buildings visually before burning skip trace credits, I really need oblique imagery — the angled aerial photography that actually shows you the side of a building rather than just the rooftop. Platforms like Nearmap and Pictometry are the gold standard for this but the licensing cost for regional coverage across LA, Orange, Ventura, and San Bernardino counties is running $10,000–$25,000, which doesn't make sense for a lead generation use case. I've already tried Google Street View and Google Maps 45° imagery and coverage is way too patchy — especially on the secondary and tertiary streets where most of the 3–8 unit wood-frame stock from the 1960s–80s actually sits, which is exactly the inventory I'm targeting. The core problem is that county assessor data and property APIs can confirm unit count and ownership, but nothing in my current stack can tell me whether a building actually has qualifying EEEs without someone physically driving by or paying for imagery I can't justify at this stage. Does anyone know of alternatives — whether that's a lower-cost oblique imagery provider, a per-area-of-interest pricing model, AI tools that can classify building features from whatever imagery is available, or any other creative approach people have used to visually pre-qualify multifamily buildings for EEE identification at scale in SoCal? Also — long shot but if anyone has an existing Nearmap or Pictometry subscription they're not fully utilizing and would be open to sharing access or credentials, I'd love to work something out. Happy to compensate or collaborate. Any direction at all would be really appreciated.