AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program

Remote Sensing of the Environment: An Earth Resource Perspective


This book introduces the principles of remote sensing from an Earth resource perspective. It describes a) the fundamental characteristics of electromagnetic radiation and how the energy interacts with Earth materials such as vegetation, water, soil and rock, b) how the energy reflected or emitted from these materials is recorded using a variety of remote sensing instruments (e.g., cameras, multispectral scanners, hyperspectral instruments, RADAR), and c) how we can extract fundamental biophysical or land use/land cover information from the remote sensor data. The history of remote sensing, the principles of visual photo-interpretation, and photogrammetry are also presented. Application chapters focus on remote sensing of vegetation, water, urban land use, and soil/rock and geomorphic features. The book was written for physical, natural, and social scientists interested in how remote sensing of the environment can be used to solve real-world problems. The following features make this book easy to comprehend and apply: a) it contains hundreds of illustrations specially designed to make complex principles easy to understand, b) a substantial reference list at the end of each chapter, c) the 8.5 x 11" format allows the remote sensing images and diagrams to be easily interpreted, d) 32 pages of color are used to display remote sensing images or biophysical information that may be extracted from remote sensor data, and e) an Appendix provides Internet addresses for the most important sources of remote sensing information. Exercises and book illustrations are made available to instructors via the author's website. This book is a companion to "Introductory Digital Image Processing: A Remote Sensing Perspective" (Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1996) which introduces the fundamentals of digital image analysis. It is ideal for undergraduate or graduate courses in airphoto interpretation and remote sensing.