Introduction 
For a number of years, remote sensing has gained in importance 
in its application for monitoring environmental changes on earth. 
Particular progress resulted from the images transmitted by the 
US satellites LANDSAT 1 and 2 (formerly called ERTS). Prepara- 
tive to the future utilization of the European SPACELAB, the 
German Bundesministerium fiir Forschung und Technologie (Federal 
Ministry for Science and Technology) has initiated and funded 
a project "Erdwissenschaftliches Flugzeug-MeBprogramm" (Geo- 
scientific Aircraft Measuring Program). Within this program, 
selected test areas along the coasts and in interior parts of 
the Federal Republic were recurrently surveyed during 1975 and 
1976, using a specially equipped research airplane. A substan- 
tial number of scientific teams had developed the experiments 
and carried out the necessary ground truth measurements during 
the campaigns (1). 
D.e.s ign of Experiment 
In the framework of its objectives for monitoring marine pollu- 
tion attributed by federal legislation, Deutsches Hydrographi- 
sches Institut (DHI) participated in the "Flugzeug-MeBprogramm", 
For this purpose, a special experiment "chemical marine pollu- 
tion" was designed and carried out by the author. Test object 
was the regular dumping of waste solutions from the production 
of a titanium dioxide factory near Nordenham (Northern Germany). 
Starting May 1969, these solutions are introduced into the North 
Sea by two special tankers with a quantity of about 1800 t per 
day. The dumping area is a rectangle centred about 14 nautical 
miles northwest of Helgoland Island. The chemical processes 
occuring during the dumping activities and their effects on 
the composition of the sea water have now been investigated 
for about ten years by the Marine Chemistry Unit of DHI; there- 
fore, a substantial volume of data, information, and experience 
is available here (2, 3, 4, 5). The solutions contain mainly 
iron sulfate, sulfuric acid and titanium oxide sulfate. To ob- 
tain maximum initial dilution, the waste solutions are pumped 
directly into the propeller water of the tankers at medium