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Remote sensing has become a widely used tool in ecology. Examples of ecological applications that use remote sensing include species conservation efforts such as GAP analysis Scott et al. 1993, land cover and land use change monitoring (Skole and Tucker 1993; DeFries and Townshend 1994), and estimation of ecosystem carbon assimilation rates and net primary production (Prince 1991). At biome to global scales, it has also been demonstrated that the utility of remote sensing for monitoring ecosystem dynamics at time scales is commensurate with global change processes (Braswell et al. 1997; Myneni et al. 1997). Developments in remote sensing technologies, including airborne radar, video imaging systems, and satellite instruments with high spatial and spectral resolution show substantial promise for ecological studies. Further, even though this chapter focuses on optical remote sensing, new technologies (e.g., radar, laser altimeter, and lidar systems, which provide detailed information regarding topography and vegetation structure in three dimensions) suggest that the use of remote sensing by ecologists is likely to increase in the future. |
