15 
515 
Until 1989, most applications of 
and planned for present and future 
earth observations systems have 
been in the more or less common 
areas of agriculture, energy and 
mineral exploration, engineering, 
forestry, geology, hydrology, land 
use management, meteorology, 
oceanography and related fields. 
The use of earth observations for 
environmental applications has been 
largely on site specific problems 
within these disciplinary areas. 
However, the recent thrust of 
NASA's "Mission to Planet Earth" 
concept in support of developing 
their Earth Observation System 
(EOS), the remarkable media 
bandwagon, public sensitivity,and 
political fallout of the satellite 
demonstrated "ozone hole" and 
global warming and clean air 
debates, the development of the 
U.S. interagency Committee on Earth 
Sciences (CES) Global Change 
Research Plan, and the related 
growth of similar inter-national, 
cooperating polar-orbiting platform 
and global research pro- grams, all 
lead to the general conclusion 
that the proposed inter-national 
earth observations systems will 
become the fundamental global 
observation technology for rapidly 
expanding major resource 
development, global change 
understanding and environmental 
applications during the period 1990 
- 2010 and beyond (Henderson, 1990) 
The growth potential for the use 
of earth observations for environs- 
mental applications will occur in 
three main areas as shown in Figure 
11. They are (Henderson, op. 
cit.): 
1. Basic and Applied Global 
Change Studies; 
3. Government and Private Sector 
Environmental Management 
Applications. 
A critical factor in evaluating 
the social value in expending the 
large sums of public money needed 
to support the various EOS 
satellite systems and the EOSDIS- 
type ground data management and 
information systems in the U.S. and 
internationally will be to 
determine what roles will be played 
by the following: 
1. Non-commercial government use 
of earth observations data in the 
"public good" for global change 
studies, monitoring and environs- 
mental management; 
2. Private sector use of earth 
observations data for resource 
development, global change studies, 
monitoring and environmental 
management; and 
3. The extent to which 
government and private industry 
efforts above can be linked 
together in the best interests of 
all in cooperative programs rather 
than adversarial environmental 
confrontation. 
2. Government Policy and 
Regulatory Monitoring; and