Remote sensing

Introduction

There is an increasing demand for accurate, timely information on environmental and natural resources, including spatial relationships and temporal changes and trends, local to global. In the broadest sense, remote sensing is the measurement or acquisition of information of an object or phenomenon, by a recording device that is not in physical or intimate contact with the object. In practice, remote sensing is the utilization at a distance (as from aircraft, spacecraft, satellite, or ship) of any device for gathering information about the environment. Advantages of this technology are:

• Observation of a large geographical area
• Long-term and fast collection of data
• Lower collecting costs
• "Inaccessible" regions become accessible (e.g. Antarctica)
• Object is not being destroyed

Disadvantages are:

• Lower spatial resolution (depending on the type of sensor)
• Need for the installation of complex systems (which have a long testing phase)
• Captured data need to be calibrated via in-situ data
• Noise caused by another source than the desired one
• Atmospheric effects degrade the quality of the images and need to be corrected

Applications

• Agriculture
• Environmental monitoring and risks
• Geology
• Oceanography
• Climatology
• Ecology

See also

• Theme 9 - Assessment of field observation techniques
• Optical remote sensing
• Oil spill monitoring
• Wikipedia: Clearly represented overview about remote sensing and helpfull links
• Tutorial on remote sensing