Remote sensing was commercialized long before GIS became a mainstream technology, but it was not until recently, when the two technologies joined forces, that remote sensing truly took off. GIS requires volumes of data, and data quickly becomes out-of-date. Thus, remote sensing has provided to GIS a means of acquiring up-to-date data for large geographic regions at relatively low cost. In particular, when working in fields such as resource management, regional planning, oceanography, disaster management and, increasingly, urban development, you will increasingly find that remotely sensed data is a 'core' dataset. Thus, a GIS analyst should have a fundamental understanding of remote sensing, given the synergies possible between the two fields.

There are many sites devoted to remote sensing. NASA has produced a useful tutorial at the Goddard Space Flight Center which covers most of the fundamental concepts involved in satellite image interpretation and analysis (it contains some fairly technical details which you may have to skip over). The Canadian Centre for Remote Sensing also has a number of tutorials.

There are many good introductory text books in the UBC library (check out the books with call numbers around G70.4, GE70 and QE 48.8), a few have also been placed on reserve in the GIC.

A new site that has some very insightful interactive tools and overall discussions on the use of remote sensing (especially for land classification) is the one that I now highly recommend: The American Museum of Natural History's Center for Biodiversity and Conservation Remote Sensing and GIS.

The following presentations form a thorough review of remote sensing. There is one presentation which covers the physics of remote sensing (Electromagnetic Radiation), one which covers digital image processing, and one which covers sensors (types of, resolution, etc.). These overhead were created by Mark W. Patterson from Kennesaw State University in Georgia. You should become familiar with the material covered in those notes (with the exception of the bits on the Stefan-Boltzmann Law and on Wien’s displacement law) if you plan on continuing on in GIS. Peng Gong at Berkeley has also prepared a set of notes on Remote Sensing and Image Interpretation which are also worth reviewing.

Given the growing importance of remotely sensed imagery to GIS, it is important for you to have at least some basic understanding of the field of remote sensing.

There is an ever-growing number of satellites collecting data which can be used in a GIS environment. For a comprehensive list, check out this list provided by Dundee University. A listing of many of the satellite names spelt out is provided by the new FAQ site.

The lecture notes (PDF of the power point presentation), although they are subject to some change as I go through the lecture.

Keywords: EMR, Spectral signatures, active / passive sensors, benefits (subpolygon info, cross boundary info, timely, etc.), NDVI

Text: Chapter 4. Although only bits of chapter four are concerned with remote sensing, eventually most of the material presented in the chapter will be covered in class (so you might as well read all of it).