Transforming Remote Sensing Data into Information and Applications (2001) / Chapter Skim
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1 Realizing the Potential of Remote Sensing
1 Realizing the Potential of Remote Sensing
Pages 7-22
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From page 7... ...
Increasingly, private sector firms are playing a more central role, even a leadership role, in providing satellite remote sensing data, either through public-private partnerships or through the establishment of commercial entities that serve both government and private sector Earth observation needs. Public sector organizations and private firms also provide technology for instrumentation flown on airborne platforms that enable the development of additional products and services.
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From page 8... ...
The Cold War emphasis on collecting intelligence to monitor the U.S.-Soviet arms race stimulated the rapid technological advancement of satellite remote sensing capabilities for military applications. During the same period progress was made in the development of remote sensing technologies applicable to civilian needs: Box 1.1 lists milestones over the past four decades.2 TIROS 1, the first meteorological satellite, was launched in 1960, and the Earth Resources Technology Satellite series, later renamed Landsat, began operating in 1972.
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From page 9... ...
government experimented with commercialization of the Landsat system, awarding a contract to the Earth Observation Satellite Company (EOSAT) in 1985 to operate the Landsat system and sell the data on the commercial market.7 This experiment, however, did not meet expectations.8 NASA moved back into the arena of remote sensing applications with the establishment of the Earth Observations Commercialization/Applications Program (EOCAP)
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From page 12... ...
Regardless of their outcome, NASA's programs to encourage the development of viable commercial uses of remote sensing data exemplify the changes under way in the existing relationships among federal science agencies, the private sector in the form of the commercial remote sensing industry, and both scientific and applied users of remote sensing data. In 1998, NASA established the Applications Division to foster and expand the uses of Earth Science Enterprise (ESE)
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From page 13... ...
Workshop discussions involving remote sensing applications users made it clear that the utility of the technology will come not from the data itself but rather from the information that can be derived from the data. These users emphasized that turning data into useful information is central to technology transfer and the development of successful applications.
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From page 14... ...
Unlike those who developed the first applications of remote sensing, many new applications users are likely to have little, if any, knowledge of remote sensing technology or how it is employed to derive information. They will be concerned instead with the accuracy and timeliness of the data and with its relevance for specific tasks and decisions.
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In the public sector, the value of the information must be weighed against alternative uses of the funds needed to support the work of transforming data into information. Achieving the needed balance depends on both the intrinsic information content of the raw data pro
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From page 16... ...
data provided increased accuracy over conventional digital elevation models and thus proved valuable in helping to determine optimum routes for new Norfolk and Southern railroad lines.l2 In another example, a private sector firm transformed satellite imagery into maps tailored for the specific needs of commercial and sports fishermen, showing where albacore rather than swordfish were likely to be present. The diversity of end users' information needs that might be met by the same initial set of physical variables is depicted in Figure 1.1, which illustrates several simultaneous data-to-information conversion processes.
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From page 18... ...
In some fields, such as pharmacology and engineering, the end product of a research project is often an application. Mechanisms such as grants and NASA Research Announcements that encourage the development of applications research would benefit the 14For example, in one case study discussed in the workshop, sanitation authorities resisted using remote sensing to improve their capabilities for monitoring coastal sewage discharge, possibly because of the potential for positive signals to complicate existing monitoring and compliance issues (see Chapter 2, Box 2.3)
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From page 19... ...
Technology transfer, at the heart of which is the creation of useful knowledge and information, is a critical element in the development of new applications of remote sensing data that is not always well understood. Rather than being confined to cost considerations that tend to focus on the initial expense of acquiring imagery, and to privatization that involves the transfer or licensing of technology to private firms, the process of remote sensing technology and knowledge transfer is better discussed, as the steering committee learned, in a broader context that includes policy and institutional issues, new users' requirements, education and training, and technical issues.
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The lack of communication among remote sensing specialists, data users, and potential infor
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REALIZING THE POTENTIAL OF REMOTE SENSING 21 mation consumers is one of the greatest barriers to expanding the use of remote sensing data. Drawing on workshop discussions and material presented in the workshop's case studies, the steering committee examined these barriers and bottlenecks and developed suggestions for ways to deal with them, taking as a starting point the requirements of end users in the coastal zone for successful operational applications.
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From page 22... ...
See: Clean Coastal Waters: Understanding and Reducing the Effects of Nutrient Pollution (Ocean Studies Board, 2000) ; Review of NASA's Earth Science Enterprise Research Strategy for 2000-2010 (Space Studies Board, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Board on Earth Sciences and Resources, and Ocean Studies Board, 2000)
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