had to be handled proved to be a disadvantage, 
The survey which was carried-out resulted in a set of maps of 1:10560 
scale showing the location of all sites of at least 0.25 ha in area, 
For each located site, the map also showed the form of the dereliction 
(i.e. spoil heap, excavation, degraded land at ground level, building 
or installation), the type and amount of vegetation cover, and the 
industry or other activity which had produced the dereliction (e.g. coal 
mining, limestone quarrying, iron smelting, railways, power stations, 
Ministry of Defence works). Separate information indicated the areas of 
sites to 0,1 ha, The agglomerated totals for each map are shown in 
Figure 3. 
A later project considered a similar survey in the Metropolitan County 
of the West Midlands (Gibson and Collins 1977). Here no single scale of 
photography was available for interpretation; although most of the County 
was covered by 1:12000 scale, other areas were covered by larger scales 
to 1:5000. Data were presented in a different form to thase of the 
Glamorgan survey and were more suited to computer storage and analysis, 
but similar types of information were collected. 
Both surveys produced more comprehensive and more accurate information 
than had previously been known in the two counties since earlier surveys 
had used traditional field methods, or had relied on the personal 
knowledge of planning staff, 
More significantly, however, they revealed a type of dereliction which 
hitherto had been disregarded or unknown, that of degraded land at ground 
level, or "waste land" as it has become known. Such land, although 
contributing greatly to the total areas of ‘dereliction in each county, 
has rarely been reclaimed since the national agencies responsible for 
grant aid have excluded it from those types of dereliction eligible for 
financial assistance. Thus whilst remote sensing has aided the solution 
of one particular problem (providing data for land reclamation), it 
has also exposed another whose solution lies in other fields of politics 
and economics, 
Related to the problem of derelict land is the disposal of wastes both 
industrial and domestic. All highly developed nations with consumer 
orientated economics are experiencing this problem to varying degrees, 
with the situation being most acute in large towns and cities, In Britain, 
the 1974 local government reorganization established Waste Disposal 
Authorities (WDAs) whose responsibility is to manage the disposal of 
waste materials, a task previously carried out by smaller bodies, The 
first problem of the WDAs was to decide which methods of disposal to use, 
and largely because of economic reasons most have chosen landfill 
methods, This mainly involves the controlled tipping of domestic or 
industrial wastes such that environmental problems of groundwater pollution 
dust and smell nuisances and proliferation of disease carrying vermin do 
not occur or at worst are minimised. 
In this context the major problem facing the WDAs is the location of 
suitable sites, Work conducted in the Remote Sensing Unit (Ballam and 
Collins, 1975) has shown the advantages of using aerial photography in 
solving this problem firstly on a limited scale in the County of Surrey 
and more comprehensively in the Metropolitan County of the West Midlands. 
   
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