Abstract
In remote sensing of the environment we usually want to determine the state of one (or several) physical, biological or geographic quantities, e.g. the biomass of a specific crop, the quantity of a polluting gas in the atmosphere, or the extent and the state of the global snow cover at a given date. However, only in exceptional cases does the distance between the object to be investigated and the observing instruments allow a direct determination of the desired quantity. In most cases physical quantities of an object (e.g. the state of development between growth and maturity of a crop) can be characterized by some electromagnetic properties (e.g. the colour). Electromagnetic waves communicate this information to a remote sensor. If this sensor is able to receive and detect the information, i.e. if it is sensitive to the relevant part of electromagnetic waves, it can determine the electromagnetic properties of the object. However, in general, the sensor will not be able to determine directly the physical quantity (e.g. the maturity of the crop). This problem is even more obvious if the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum not visible to the human eye are involved.
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© 1986 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Schanda, E. (1986). Some Basic Relations. In: Physical Fundamentals of Remote Sensing. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-48733-0_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-48733-0_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-16236-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-48733-0
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