Can I use remote sensing for my application?

Underlying question: Is there a body of evidence to demonstrate that the use of remote sensing for mapping and monitoring a particular terrestrial environmental variable is 'operational'?

In this context, 'operational' refers to an application based on commercially available image data and software being used in a procedure that has been clearly documented and demonstrated through peer-review publication to be accurate within a specific coastal environment.

The terms 'operational', 'feasible' and 'not possible' have been used frequently in literature that has assessed remote sensing's suitability for monitoring specific environmental indicators. We have identified 'operational' and 'feasible' applications to ensure full capabilities of remote sensing are considered. Operational applications are those that have been clearly demonstrated to work accurately from commercially available image data and standard image processing systems, and are delivering data at the required resolution. Feasible applications are those that have been shown to work with experimental image data sets or over limited areas with very small pixels or global scales with large pixels.

The following table is the first step in this process. Examples are presented below the table for each parameter from a variety of cases case studies. For the 'operational' indicators the following will explain how to go about using remote sensing, down to specifics and costs.

Table: Download here ( 124KB)