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People and Pixels
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There is increased interest today in making scientific progress through the use of remotely sensed data1 in social science research. Space-based sensors are scanning the earth's surface and sending back images with increasingly high spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution, and data likely to become publicly available within the next year promise to show considerably improved resolution.2 Government agencies that collect remotely sensed data, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), have a growing interest in making these data useful to social scientists, and the increased availability of funding for research on the human dimensions of global change provides incentives for social scientists to study human activities with a strong spatial component, such as land-use transformations. This confluence of events sets the stage for social scientists to use remotely sensed data and for social scientists and remote sensing experts to collaborate.3 This volume examines the potential for such use. It offers some guidance for researchers and research sponsors in the form of reports of promising research, information on the state of the technology, and reflections on the challenges of linking social science and remotely sensed data. Remote sensing is not a new technology. Aerial photographs have been in widespread use for a half-century (Carls, 1947) and satellite images for a quarter century (e.g., Estes et al., 1980; Morain, in this volume). These images have been put to various socially useful purposes, including making crop forecasts, predicting severe storms, and planning land development. Despite the apparent usefulness of remotely sensed data for social purposes, however, remotely sensed images have not been a popular data source for social science research, for several reasons.
Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change, National Research Council - Organizational Body
0-309-59304-2
NONE
Management
English
1998
1-267
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