ABSTRACT
In 1987, Mulder published a book entitled Remote Sensing in Soil Science (Mulder, 1987) that provided a comprehensive summary and background of all of the soil RS activities known at the time. Mulder’s excellent review covered theory, sensors, and applications for soil using RS means. Since 1987, remarkable progress has been made in the soil RS arena, including electro-optic and space technologies, computing power, applied mathematics (for data manipulation), and soil spectral analysis and databases. A¬er almost three decades, these signi¤cant advances in soil remote sensing have attracted many young as well as experienced users from the scienti¤c community and from the industry. Many new users have entered the soil RS ¤eld and use the technology in different ways, making up speci¤c scienti¤c working groups that have created a unique subcommunity. With better accessibility to this infrastructure (in the laboratory, ¤eld, air and space domains), soil spectroscopy has become a very basic and powerful tool from both point and imaging spectral viewpoints. Ÿis chapter is thus aimed at covering some key historical stages of this promising technology and reviewing most of the advances in this arena to date. Based on past and present activities, this chapter also highlights the leading directions in the ¤eld and provides some thoughts on future possibilities for the remote sensing of soils.
