Optical Remote Sensing

"Optical remote sensing is obtaining information about an area or phenomenon through a device that does not touch the area or phenomenon under study. Your eyes are a good example of remote sensing instruments. Many remote sensing devices are onboard satellites that monitor the Earth from space. Remote sensing allows mapping of vegetation, climate and atmospheric composition over large regions and to repeat the measurements consistently over many years. In this way remote sensing provides planetary-scale measurements of our climate system helping us develop and validate new theories. It also allows for monitoring the effectiveness of various solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions." (NASA 2014)

Sources

NASA 2014. “Remote Sensing.” 2014. https://www.nasa.gov/content/remote-sensing/.
 

Related Terms
Remote Sensing

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Article

Interview with Mr Stuart Crane, Programme Management Officer at UN Environment

Interview with Mr Stuart Crane, Programme Management Officer at UN Environment

Photo of Stuart Crane
Mr Stuart Crane, has been program coordinator at the United Nations Environment Program and its Center for Water and Environment since 2017. Mr Crane has experience in international intergovernmental organizations since 2009 and dedicated large parts of his career to working on environmental issues such as energy, climate change and water. His professional background is in Environmental Quality and resource management, and he received his post graduate degree in International Development. On behalf of UNEP, he coordinates a global SDG 6 fresh water program that supports 193 countries with progressing towards SDG. 6 targets on improving the water governance, ecosystem management and reducing freshwater pollution.
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Mapping and Monitoring Irrigated Agriculture from Space

Mapping and Monitoring Irrigated Agriculture from Space

Centre PivotsCammalleri, C, M C Anderson, F Gao, C R Hain, and W P Kustas. 2014. “Mapping Daily Evapotranspiration at Field Scales over Rainfed and Irrigated Agricultural Areas Using Remote Sensing Data Fusion.” Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 186: 1–11. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2013.11.001. D’Urso, Guido. 2001. Simulation and Management of On-Demand Irrigation Systems: A Combined Agrohydrological and Remote Sensing Approach. Wageningen: WU thesis 2961 Proefschrift Wageningen.

Irrigation illustrates a major dilemma of agriculture: On the one hand, a growing world population demands more food and biomass (for example for energy production). On the other hand, natural resources such as water are only available in limited quantities and excessive use often leads to the degradation of ecosystems, which in turn has adverse effects on agricultural production and local livelihoods.

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Mapeo y monitoreo de la agricultura de riego desde el espacio

Remote sensing techniques for observing snow and ice

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Satellite remote sensing ice

Introduction 

Snow has a crucial contribution to Earth’s climate and helps to maintain the Earth’s temperature. When snow melts, it aids in providing water to people for their livelihood and affects the survival of animals and plants (National Snow and Ice Data Center). Approximately 1.2 billion people - constituting one-sixth of the global population - depend on snowmelt water for both agricultural activities and human consumption (Barnett et al., 2005).

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Interview with Mr Stuart Crane, Programme Management Officer at UN Environment

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Photo of Stuart Crane
Mr Stuart Crane, has been program coordinator at the United Nations Environment Program and its Center for Water and Environment since 2017. Mr Crane has experience in international intergovernmental organizations since 2009 and dedicated large parts of his career to working on environmental issues such as energy, climate change and water. His professional background is in Environmental Quality and resource management, and he received his post graduate degree in International Development. On behalf of UNEP, he coordinates a global SDG 6 fresh water program that supports 193 countries with progressing towards SDG. 6 targets on improving the water governance, ecosystem management and reducing freshwater pollution.
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Interview with Lukas Graf

Interview with Lukas Graf

Photo of Lukas Valentin Graf
Lukas Graf used to take clean drinking water for granted. As he grew up, and conversations around climate change and environmental destruction became increasingly intense, he started to become more aware of the importance and scarcity of water resources. Around a similar time, he became increasingly enthusiastic about space, realising that space technologies could be used to explore many of the pressing topics that he was interested in. He has participated in research projects that used remote sensing methods to study the effects of global change on ecosystems and especially on water availability. Lukas is interested in a range of topics from virtual water and water quality to irrigation and agriculture. He believes that interdisciplinary approaches and mutual dialog with societies and stakeholders need to be deepened for sustained resource management.
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Photo of Lukas Valentin Graf
Lukas Graf used to take clean drinking water for granted. As he grew up, and conversations around climate change and environmental destruction became increasingly intense, he started to become more aware of the importance and scarcity of water resources. Around a similar time, he became increasingly enthusiastic about space, realising that space technologies could be used to explore many of the pressing topics that he was interested in. He has participated in research projects that used remote sensing methods to study the effects of global change on ecosystems and especially on water availability. Lukas is interested in a range of topics from virtual water and water quality to irrigation and agriculture. He believes that interdisciplinary approaches and mutual dialog with societies and stakeholders need to be deepened for sustained resource management.
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Event

43rd International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium 2023

12th Advanced Training Course on Land Remote Sensing

Person

Graf

Software/Tool/(Web-)App

Database for Hydrological Time Series of Inland Waters

Database for Hydrological Time Series of Inland Waters

Logo

The Database for Hydrological Time Series of Inland Waters (DAHITI) was developed by the Deutsches Geodätisches Forschungsinstitut der Technischen Universität München (DGFI-TUM) in 2013 to provide water level time series of inland waters. Today, DAHITI provides a variety of hydrologial information such as water levels, surface areas and volume variations on lakes, reservoirs, rivers, and wetlands derived from satellite data, i.e. from multi-mission satellite altimetry and optical remote sensing imagery.

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