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Title: REMOTE SENSING APPLICATIONS TO HYDROLOGY:INTRODUCTION

Author
item Ritchie, Jerry
item Rango, Albert

Submitted to: Hydrological Sciences Journal
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/1/1996
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: This is the first of a proposed series of special issues of the Hydrological Sciences Journal planned to give state-of-the-art overviews of science covered in the different Commissions and Committees of the International Association for Hydrological Sciences. The International Committee for Remote Sensing and Data Transmission in hydrology organized this first special issue to cover the current research and operational applications of remote sensing technology to hydrology. The applications of remote sensing data in hydrology are becoming more important because remote sensing techniques can measure spatial, spectral, and temporal information and also provide data on the state of the Earth's surface. It is also rapidly changing with new sensors, platforms, and application techniques being developed to give hydrologists new data and new views of the landscape with which to evaluate the Earth's surface. This special issue gives examples of the application of remote sensing data in operational and research programs to monitor hydrological conditions and changes in time and space.

Technical Abstract: Remote sensing techniques can be used to directly and indirectly measure hydrological variables and parameters. The objective of this special issue of the Hydrological Sciences Journal is to provide an overview of the applications of remote sensing data to operational and research hydrology so that the applications of remote sensing to hydrology can be better understood and applied. Twelve papers addressing various applications of remote sensing to hydrology are in this volume. Papers describing the applications of remote sensing to precipitation, runoff, snow, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, water quality, groundwater, hydrologic modeling and Geographic Information Systems are included. Finally, the case is made that the science of hydrology is data limited and that this lack of data limits future progress in understanding hydrological processes. The application of remote sensing data to hydrology should provide the spatially distributed and temporal data needed by hydrologists to address many unsolved questions in hydrological sciences.