ABSTRACT
Remote sensing data may be acquired on the ground, from conventional aircraft, and from satellites such as the Landsat series in polar orbits around Earth. Remote sensing in East Africa is receiving major support from donor nations as well as host countries. A contribution of remote sensing is as a tool for discovering unexpected interrelationships between human activities and the surroundings in which they take place: that is, the entire ecosystem, including humans. Remote sensing can contribute to human ecology by providing a method for testing local observations for their wider applicability. Of all the advantages which remote sensing offers the human ecologist, the emphasis is on discovery of interrelationships between a population and its environment and testing wider applications of observations originally made within a strictly local frame of reference. The synoptic quality of remote sensing data is such that identifying and quantifying “transitional areas” or ecotones is accomplished as readily as mapping major “heartlands” or ecozones.
