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International Laws, Charters, and Policies

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Principles of Applied Remote Sensing

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Abstract

Remote sensing has been identified as one of the most significant technological achievements of the twentieth century. Earth observation satellites transcend national boundaries and geophysical space, creating transparency into activities and places that were once concealed from foreign states. This raises many issues—the ideals of cooperation, societal openness, and information sharing juxtaposed with the very real fears that spatial information could be used for sparking military conflicts and other malevolent purposes.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    1 United Nations Resolution (RES) 41/65. Principles Relating to Remote Sensing of the Earth from Outer Space. Adopted without a vote, December 3, 1986. Available online: http://www.unoosa.org/pdf/gares/ARES_41_65E.pdf.

  2. 2.

    2 France had launched SPOT in 1986 and the resulting images quickly outsold US Landsat images. In 1988, India launched IRS-1A. These events placed pressure on the United States to determine how to promote the commercial remote sensing industry, ultimately leading to the passage of the Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992. To implement that legislation, the President William J. Clinton Administration issued Presidential Decision Directive (PDD)−23 on March 9, 1994 to support and encourage foreign sales of images while protecting national security (Thompson 2007).

  3. 3.

    3 The GEOSS 10-year Implementation Plan includes nine “Societal Benefit Areas”: disasters, protecting health/forecasting disease outbreaks, optimizing energy use, improving climate observations, managing water resources, forecasting weather, mapping and classifying ecosystems, improving agriculture and fisheries management, and protecting biodiversity.

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Suggested Reading

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Sci. Policy & Mgmt., University of California, Berkeley, 94720, Berkeley, California, USA

    Siamak Khorram & Matthew D. Potts

  2. Center for Geospatial Analytics, North Carolina State University, 27695-7106, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

    Siamak Khorram

  3. US Environmental Protection Agency Region 4 NEPA Program Office, 109 T.W. Alexander Drive, 27711, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA

    Cynthia F. van der Wiele

  4. Southern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, 27709, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA

    Frank H. Koch

  5. Center for Geospatial Analytics, North Carolina State University, 27695-7106, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

    Stacy A. C. Nelson

Authors
  1. Siamak Khorram
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  2. Cynthia F. van der Wiele
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  3. Frank H. Koch
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  4. Stacy A. C. Nelson
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  5. Matthew D. Potts
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Correspondence to Siamak Khorram .

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Khorram, S., van der Wiele, C.F., Koch, F.H., Nelson, S.A.C., Potts, M.D. (2016). International Laws, Charters, and Policies. In: Principles of Applied Remote Sensing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22560-9_8

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