■SB 
ADVANCED SATELLITE EARTH 
OBSERVATIONS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL 
MANAGEMENT DURING 1990-2010 
Frederick B. Henderson III, Ph.D, 
The Geosat Committee, Inc. 
601 Elm St. 438C 
Norman, Oklahoma 73019 
(405) 325-3329 
ISPRS, Victoria B.C. 
September 1990 
ABSTRACT 
Man's growing population needs 
for resources and their impact on 
the environment and Global Change 
will be major international issues 
for the 1990's. Proposed advanced 
Polar Orbiting Platforms such as 
NASA, Earth Observing System (EOS) 
and similar systems of ESA and 
Japan coupled with other 
international systems will conduct 
extensive satellite earth 
observations for resource 
development and global change 
studies for better environ- mental 
management. These programs will 
produce tremendous volumes of 
electro-optical, microwave and 
radar data creating a massive 
digital database for basic 
scientific and applied research for 
geology, agriculture, oceanography, 
meteo- rology, and environmental 
sciences. Database management and 
internal data access are major 
issues under current review by ESA, 
NASA,, NASDA and others. U.S. 
government research is being 
coordinated by the new interagency 
Committee on Earth Sciences (CES). 
Resource industries who contribute 
to man's environ- mental impact 
have a major stake in the CES 
research plan. The international 
industrial based Geosat Committee 
is working with the CES to 
establish industry govern- ment- 
501 
academia linkages with industry 
participation in these broad 
international environmental studies 
from space. 
INTRODUCTION 
During the last decade, 
satellite earth observations 
coupled with many other global 
geophysical observa- tions have 
raised serious concern about man's 
growing impact on the earth's 
environment. While this concern is 
not historically new, modern 
satellite technology is opening new 
ways of observing and measuring the 
earth's environment on an ongoing 
global basis. What is critically 
important for this new technology 
is to assure that it is used wisely 
to understand natural and man-made 
environmental changes. Global 
population growth and demands for 
improved living standards place 
great pressures on more resource 
development and consequent environ 
mental fallout. Therefore, it is 
vital that the knowledge derived 
from earth observations and global 
change studies be prudently applied 
in international decisions as to 
which of man's impacts can be 
corrected and which must be 
accepted as the price of mankind's 
continued existence. 
INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES 
During the next two decades, 
satellite earth observations 
systems will be deployed by several 
nations and used to study, monitor, 
and deal with many international 
environ- mental issues. Chief 
among these is studying and 
understanding changes in the 
earth's environment from a global 
perspective as a basis to 
understand and influence, where 
prudent, man's impact on the 
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