ABSTRACT
Remote sensing (RS) is often viewed as a technology for data acquisition on the Earth’s surface. It was described in detail in one of the previous entries of this section. This entry provides ways in which RS, including aerial photography, is integrated to a Geographic Information System (GIS) for environmental assessments needed in land use planning and management. RS is compatible with GIS because the data generated are geo-referenced to a known coordinate system and are spatial in nature. These data are generally stored and queried as grid, a data structure supported by the most popular commercial GIS software. Later, they are transferred to a GIS platform after processing for integration with other spatial land attributes from spatial data sources such as soil databases and digital elevation models. This RS/GIS integration and associated datasets can also be part of GIS-based systems such as GIS/model interfaces and spatial decision support systems (SDSS).
