ISPRS
Technical Commission VII: Resources and Environment Monitoring
Gábor Remetey-Fülópp, Commission VII President (Hungary)
Péter Winkler, Commission VII Secretary (Hungary)
Frank Hegyi, Commission VII Secretary (Canada)
Terms of Reference for the Period 1996-2000
Methodology of visual image interpretation. Computer-
aided interpretation and analysis of sensor data. Spectral,
spatial and temporal radiation properties of objects. Envi-
ronmental studies, resources inventories and interpretative
aspects of thematic mapping as applied in studies of veg-
etation, forestry, agriculture, soils, land and water use,
geology, geomorphology, hydrology, oceanography,
coastal zones, snow and ice, atmospheric sciences,
archealogy, human settlements and engineering. Integra-
tion of remote sensing and GIS techniques for the moni-
toring of resources and environment.
State of Science and Technology of Commission VII
Topics
Remote Sensing Became Inevitable Technology Tool
for Science and for Society
Applied remote sensing became a more and more
inevitable technology tool, contributing to human progress
toward sustainability by supporting solving of environ-
ment-related tasks on a local, regional and global level.
Major challenges are the exploitation of research and
global co-operation, where the application potential brings
direct benefits in climate change research, agriculture,
environmental monitoring, cartography and natural
resources management. It helps policy decisionmaking to
reduce negative societal-economic impact and assist in
ensuring sustainable development in the long run.
Prof.Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, President of ICSU', wrote (in Sci-
ence International, December, 1999): *Because technol-
ogy is always a part of the society, we might say that engi-
neering is a mapping of science into society. Consider any
relationship between science and society, and engineering
will be necessary." Today, remote sensing will become an
integrated part of the advanced Information Technology
and Telecommunication infrastructure, basement of the
information society. Building spectral databases and
cross-border, continental or global datasets; refining vali-
dation, calibration procedures in a multi-source, multi-
temporal environment and paving the way for standardis-
ation are some of the strategic imperatives of the
application-oriented research and development initiatives
which support the daily, operational utilisation of the tech-
nology.
Major Improvements
Major improvements have been made especially in the
hyperspectral opportunities, data fusion experience, stor-
age, management and retrieval of large datasets. The
accelerating impact of the available enabling technologies
(computers, Internet and NGI, high-speed communication,
mobile environment) should also be emphasised. Impor-
tant is the timely use of data in extraction and interpreta-
tion by digital image processing, pattern recognition and
feature identification. Data quality issues play an important
role: how accurate are the results? Satellite segment,
extensive ground segment for processing, archival and
International Archives of Photogrammerty and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part A. Amsterdam 2000. — ——
distribution, as well as data readily available to general sci-
entific users, have been realised (e.g. in the Earth Observ-
ing System of NASA). Facilities (such as the Eros Data
Center's DAAC) provide extensive Internet data access
(e.g. AVHRR, DEM, Landsat, radar) for the interdisciplinary
user community also helping a better understanding of the
Earth as a total system. NASA's major scientific priorities in
Spectral sensing research applications focus for the next
10 years on atmospheric chemistry and ozone, seasonal
and annual climate variability, long-term climate change,
land cover/use change and global productivity and natural
hazard mitigation by observation, understanding, building
models and implementing scientific assessments. Accord-
ing to G.Asrar at the ISSSR conference in 1999, there is a
need for a pathfinder for international policy decision-mak-
ing (e.g. monitoring and documenting the ozone hole). The
present challenge: can we learn to predict regional climate
variations from months to a year in advance? Next chal-
lenge: there is a need for systematic, calibrated, long-term
data records and their assimilation into already existing
general circular models (including oceans, atmosphere,
cryosphere, land and biosphere) under evolution. To do so,
even more diverse data is required. Future challenge: we
have only the beginning of an observational strategy for
global assessment of ecosystem behavior.
The integration of global-to-regional-to local scale obser-
vation is especially challenging. According to this strategy,
a large number of missions are expected in the coming
years. The “Digital Earth — Understanding our planet in the
21st Century" is a vision closely related to the subject. The
concept document announced by Al Gore in February
1998 begins: “A new wave of technological innovation is
allowing us to capture, store, process and display an
unprecedented amount of information about our planet
and a wide variety of environmental and cultural phenom-
ena. Much of this information will be georeferenced. “Tak-
ing the list of the working group partners at the 8th Digital
Earth meeting held in December 1999, the interdisciplinary
work and the role and potential of remote sensing is
reflected by the co-operating agencies such as ACE, EPA,
FGDC, NASA, NIMA, NOAA, NSF, USDA and USGS. Rele-
vant international projects close to the subject include:
- Digital Earth Information Resources (an index of on-line
information resources)
- Analogue to Digital Earth (a list of sites similar to the
Digital Earth concept)
- Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI, formed by
linking of national and regional spatial data infrastruc-
tures is a global and open process for coordinating the
organisation, management and use of spatial data and
related activities)
- Global Mapping (a group of global geographic datasets
of known and verified quality, with consistent specifica-
tions which will be open to the public)
- DEVELOP (the Digital Earth Virtual Environment and
Learning Outreach Project of NASA Langley)
- Global Disaster Information Network (GDIN, established
to improve the effectiveness and interoperability of
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