Encyclopedia of Remote Sensing

2014 Edition
| Editors: Eni G. Njoku

Wetlands

  • John Melack
Reference work entry
First Online:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-36699-9_196
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Definitions

Passive microwave radiation is emitted from the Earth’s land, seas, and atmosphere at wavelengths generally between 0.15 and 30 cm or, if expressed as frequencies, between 1 and 200 GHz.

Emissivity is the ratio of energy radiated by a material to energy radiated by a blackbody at the same temperature.

Introduction

Wetlands cover extensive areas worldwide (Lehner and Döll, 2004), have important ecological and biogeochemical functions, and play critical roles in improving water quality, mitigating floods, and providing habitat for fish and wildlife. For many wetlands, remote sensing is the preferred approach to obtain a synoptic view of inundation and vegetative cover, and a suite of optical and microwave sensing systems and analysis algorithms are being applied to wetlands (Sahagian and Melack, 1998; Melack, 2004). In the case of the large, temporally varying wetlands found throughout the world, a remote sensing system with frequent, near-global coverage and sensitivity to...

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Bibliography

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  • John Melack
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine BiologyUniversity of CaliforniaSanta BarbaraUSA