AN ACADEMIC PROGRAMME “BETTER UNDERSTANDING OK 
EARTH ENVIRONMENT VIA SATELLITE" 
Mikio Takagi 
Professor, Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo, Japan, ISPRS Commission VII 
This paper introduces an academic programme “Better Understanding of Earth Environment via Satel 
lite” in Japan, which is going on since 1989 as a three year programme, funded by the Ministry of Educa 
tion to promote effectively unique and well organized researches with close cooperation between science 
and engineering for the better understanding of earth environment based on earth observation from 
space. The features of this programme lies in the points to promote academic researches from a new 
viewpoint (problems in boundary area), and com mon basic researches to support them. Five planned re 
searches; “Grobal Change Analysis of Biosphere Using Satellite Data -Interaction between Atmosphei— 
ic and Terrestrial Aspects-”, “Study on Physical Process of Water Cycle over the Land” and “Study of 
Air-Sea Interaction Using Satellite Data” as academic researches from a new viewpoint, “Basic Study 
on Earth Observations by Microwaves” and “Higher Order Processing of Earth Observation Informa 
tion” as common basic researches, have been selected. This programme is promoted by the close coop 
eration between the planned researches, selected researches from generally submitted proposals, and 
working groups. 
KEYWORDS: Earth environment, Grobal change analysis, Water cycle, Air-sea interaction, .Mi 
crowave remote sensing, Higher order processing 
The Priority Area Programme on “Better Under 
standing of Earth Environment via Satellite” 
funded by the Ministry of Education is going on 
since 1989 as a three year programme. This pro 
gramme is the extension of the Special Research 
on “Higher Order Utilization of Remote Sensing 
Data from Space”, which organized researchers 
in the fields of microwave, data processing, 
oceanography, meteorology and land, and cov 
ered researches from basic ones to applications. 
As the result, a group with good cooperation was 
organized, much communication within the group 
was made, and each research was promoted 
strongly. Through this project the importance of 
earth observation by satellite was recognized and 
it was decided to propose a priority area pro 
gramme to promote academic research corre 
sponding to the trends that satellite observation 
would become very active internationally towards 
90’s. The research plan was discussed and refined 
from 1986 to 87 supported by the General Research 
“Elucidation of Earth Environmental Phenomena 
Using Multi-temporal and Multi-dimensional 
Information Observed by Satellite", and submit 
ted to the Ministry of Education and finally this 
programme was approved. 
The objectives of this programme are to establish 
observation techniques of various kinds of earth 
environments and to promote basic researches to 
understand the mechanism of the variations of 
earth environment based on earth observation in 
formation from space. Since the phenomena on 
the earth cover the wide area in atmsphere, hy 
drosphere and geosphere, measurement of phe 
nomena is, first of all, essential to the under 
standing of phenomena. Conventional measure 
ment methods have the disadvantages that, if the 
region of interest becomes wider, measurement 
points become corser due to cost and labour, 
mesurement time differs from points to points, 
because simultaneous measurement at many 
points is very difficult, and its frequency is much 
reduced. In 1960’s, as one of the most important 
results of space development, a new earth obser 
vation technique appeared. Namely, that is re 
mote sensing from space, which has the advan 
tages that information covering a wide area can 
be acquired in a short time and the same area can 
be observed repeatedly. Therefore, remote sens 
ing provides one of the most essential techniques 
for earth observation and it is expected that its 
application fields become w ider and w ider. So far, 
LANDSAT, GMS, METEOSAT, GOES, NOAA, 
SEASAT, IICMM, NIMBUS, SPOT, MOS-1 and 
so on have been available earth observation satel 
lites, and ERS, ERS-J, Space Stations and others 
are under development tow ards 90’s. 
Since various kinds of satellites arc going to be 
launched in 90’s, earth observation will change in 
quality and volume owing to satellite measure 
ment. Global monitoring of earth environment, 
better understanding and prediction of global 
scale phenomena such as oceanic or atmospheric 
variations, and management of earth resources 
attract world-wide interest. And it is expected 
that satellites will play an important role to solve 
these problems. 
Unfortunately, however, in Japan the system for 
academic research to apply satellite data to basic 
researches on earth environment such as atmo 
sphere, ocean and land has not been well estab 
lished. And, there are a lot of problems to be 
solved. Therefore, this programme has been ap 
proved and realized. Such a global view is one of 
the most important standpoints of this pro 
gramme and the outcome will contribute to solve 
social problems. 
This programme intends to promote effectively 
unique and well organized researches with close 
cooperation between science and engineering in 
both hardware and software sides. Researchers 
covering wide fields have not been organized in 
Japan until the three year’s Special Research on 
“Higher Order LTilization of Remote Sensing Da 
ta from Space” had started. In the previous re 
search, close cooperation between scientists in 
geoscience such as oceanography and meteorolo 
gy and in engineering such as data processing 
and remote sensing was set up and researches 
were promoted up to high academic level. And 
through this research future research direction 
became more clearly. Namely, it was recognized 
that further intensive academic research is 
strongly required for better understanding of 
earth environment via global observation and that 
there has been no system in Japan for academic 
rcarchers to promote understanding of earth envi 
ronment via satellite. Therefore, this programme 
intends to establish such a system. 
The earth environments surrounding human ac 
tivities arc shown in Fig. 1. The features of this 
programme lies in the points to promote academ 
ic research from a new viewpoint and common 
basic research to support it. As academic re 
search from a new' viewpoint, problems in bound