Multitemporal remote sensing: Current status, trends and challenges

Abstract

Our planet is facing unprecedented environmental challenges including rapid urbanization, deforestation, pollution, loss of biodiversity, sea-level rising, melting polar ice-caps and climate change. With its synoptic view and the repeatability, remote sensing offers a powerful and effective means to observe and monitor our changing planet at local, regional and global scale. Since the launch of Landsat-1 in 1972, numerous Earth Observation satellites have been launched providing large volumes of multitemporal data acquired by multispectral, hyperspectral, passive microwave, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), and LiDAR sensors. This chapter first presents an overview of the Earth Observation sensors and trends in multitemporal observation capacity. Then the current status, challenges and opportunities of multitemporal remote sensing are discussed. Finally the synopsis of the book is provided covering a wide array of methods and techniques in processing and analysis of multitemporal remotely sensed images as well as a variety of application examples in both land and aquatic environments.