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Thus, tensions are steadily building
between strong economic forces on the
one hand, and the need to utilize the
fabulous tools that remote sensing offers
for comprehensive scientific purposes.
Equally, subtly differing legal precedents
and policies within different countries
are now coming into open conflict, as a
number of factors - the end of the Cold
War, economic forces, scientific needs,
and significant technological advances
in both remote sensing technology and
international transborder data
technology - are pushing for immediate
international sharing and collection of
data. These legal issues involved
differing traditions and laws between
countries of copyright of data, roles of
meteorological and data collection
services, and national “cost recovery”
data pricing policies.
METHODS OF RESEARCH
Methods of research include literature
review, analysis of recent and on-going
international agreements, and extensive
interviews with “experts” and policy
leaders in the U.S. government, Europe,
the United Nations and developing
countries.
ISSUES OF INTERFERENCE IN THE
INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE OF
REMOTELY SENSED DATA
Complex issues threaten to restrict and
confuse the international sharing of
remotely sensed data. These impediments
can be broadly put into two distinct
categories: economic and policy
issues.
Economic Issues
In recent years, many of the crucial
issues related to remote sensing data
sharing (and indeed, all types of data
sharing) have revolved around growing
economic forces. These issues can be
divided into the following topics:
41
The Growth of a Commercial Sector.
The most significant economic
development in the 1990s has been the
enormous international growth of a
private sector industry that is involved
in both the selling of “value-added”
remote sensing data products and, in
some cases, actual generation of data by
privately owned Sensors. Such
companies as Accuweather and Kavouras
now respond to a growing international
market demand for value-added
meteorological and remote sensing data
products. As the cost of software and
hardware systems for processing
remotely sensed data has decreased (and
their accuracy and power increased)
dramatically in recent years, the ability
of private companies (or individuals) to
process and enhance remotely sensed
data has vastly improved. Firms are now
able to offer specific value-added
products for particular market sectors.
Also, the number of private firms
launching and operating their own
space-borne and airborne sensors has
increased. This is due, in part, to the
decrease in the relative cost of such
projects, and the fact that technology for
doing so is more readily available. In the
U.S., for example, Space Imaging, Inc., a
subsidiary of Lockheed, Inc. is designing
a multispectral stereo land remote
sensing satellite system capable of
achieving resolutions of 1 m
(panchromatic).
Partly due to the end of the Cold War,
political factors that would have
inhibited the growth of the market for
digital imagery are disappearing. For
example, remote sensing Services of the
former Soviet Union now work with
individual distribution companies in the
U.S. and Europe to sell and distribute high
resolution imagery (up to 1 meter)
formerly collected by Soviet military
systems for profit.
Another crucial factor in the
development of the commercial market
for remotely sensed images has been that
of technology, including the exponential
growth of international computer
networks which facilitate the
instantaneous transfer of digital
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B6. Vienna 1996
