ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the role of human factors in quantifying terrain features from remotely acquired photographs and digital images. Measurement of the relief and pattern observed in topography is essential to understanding land-shaping processes and representing Earth’s surface as the locus of human activity. In describing human factors in the quantitative analysis of topography from remote data, the chapter draws heavily from Schroter’s legacy. Despite the common assumption that its mathematics makes it “objective,” terrain quantification entails much human supervision. The recognition of landforms remotely is sensitive to variance in human expertise. Clarity of a landform and variations in freshness influence sampling. Landforms selected for sampling must be “captured” from images and maps by describing their shape in ways that distinguish them from other land-forms. Uncertainties in the remote capture of landform data remain despite advances in technology. Landforms are interpreted from their measurements by methods that are subjective, despite the scientific objectivity sometimes claimed for them.
