MONITORING OF NON-FORESTED WILDLAND 
RESOURCES USING REMOTE SENSING 
Paul T. Tueller 
James H. Everett 
University of Nevada 
Environmental and Resource Science 
1000, Valley Road 
Reno, Nevada 89512-0013, USA 
ISPRS Commission VII / Working Group 5 
ABSTRACT 
Non-forested wildlands (mostly rangelands) cover some 40 percent of the earth surface. They include 
grasslands, shrub dominated deserts with various amounts of herbaceous plant materials including 
grasses, open shrub savannah in tropical environments and tundra. These resources have not received the 
management input as have agricultural areas and managed forest. Remote sensing offers strong 
possibilities for resource monitoring on these landscapes. Multispetral aerial videography coupled with 
image processed satellite images and suitable ground data offer potential for monitoring these landscapes 
for their ecological integrity as well as providing input for management prescriptions. This potential will 
only be realized when international, country, regional and local agencies or entities develop institutional 
procedures to support known technical procedures that we feel can properly utilize the technology now 
available for such an effort. An optimum monitoring procedure for both developed and developing 
countries will use satellite pixels and airborne video in differing swathwidths to acquire interpretable data 
to monitor natural resources on non-forested wildlands anywhere in the world. The specifics involve 
appropriate sampling and interpretation procedures and more importantly the commitment of the entity or 
group of entities to the task of monitoring. Institutional infrastructure to support monitoring must be 
developed along with required budges, training, equipment acquisition and publication. Then the 
remotely sensed data must be interpreted, summarized and placed into appropriate work manuals or other 
outlets followed by the actual interjection of the remotely sensed information into ongoing everyday 
resource management decision making. Commitment and training is the is the sine qua non for using 
monitoring to make a difference to the ecological integrity of target ecosystems around the world. 
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