water, wildland recreation and wildlife. To do that task means we must first
be experts in one of those particular discipline areas in order to understand
the needs of and communicate effectively with the man on the ground. There are
too many instances of non-discipline types misleading the land manager on the
capabilities of remote sensing. Of course there are too many discipline types
who also do the same thing.
Secondly, we must understand the capabilities of the remote sensing systems.
How much do we understand of the first remote sensing system -- the camera
system? Actually at present, the camera system, with few exceptions, is the
only practical system in use today for most of us. There is much research and
many demonstration projects with other systems, but we could probably count on
one hand the operational uses of any of the other systems for natural resource
purposes.
| Actually with any of the existing systems we have the same relative problem
of interpretating images. Electromagnetic energy is reflected or emitted from
an area on the earth's surface and is sensed by a sensor with an instantaneous
field of view, which in essence defines the resolution of that system, and
integrates that energy from a particular band based on the sensor/filter combin-
ation. Whether it is in digital or analog form, the interpreter is faced with
the task of interpreting integrated data, with all of its confounding character-
istics, at a certain resolution. Think about that before interpreting your
next image.
Thirdly, we must know the techniques for interpreting the data and be able
to deduce, integrate, and statistically analyze the data. This is where these
conferences and many other workshops can be effective. Through research and
demonstration project results we can better understand and learn the appropriate
techniques. Only by doing it ourselves can we learn to deduce, integrate and
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