ABSTRACT
We have reviewed the needs for environmental remote sensing, the physical bases of remote sensing, and data collection both from remote sensing systems and from longer established sources. We must proceed next to consider the means which are being developed to present the hard-won remotely sensed data to the users in the form they find most convenient, so that the data can be exploited as efficiently, effectively and economically as possible in environmental research or operations. This necessitates attention to an important 'eternal triangle' linking three basic and quite different forms of remote sensing data, and to four commonly recognized stages through which most remote sensing data pass from initial acquisition to final, and hopefully profitable, deployment in the solution of environmental problems.
