International Coordination of Satellite Land Observations: Integrated Observations of the Land

Successful and sustainable use of natural resources crucially depends on the ­continuous assessment and monitoring of the land resource status, their use mechanisms, and their impacts on future resource availability. Remote sensing observations are crucial to all these activities, especially those with finer resolutions in the 30–60 m range, and moderate resolutions in the 250 m to 1 km range. MODIS and ASTER are two key sensors, which provide such data. In this chapter, we consider the comprehensive needs for terrestrial observations including these and many other sensor systems along with in situ observations.