Remote Sensing of Natural Areas: Procedures and Considerations for Assessing Vegetation Composition Change, Land Development, and Erosion

Remote sensing can be defined as the “acquisition and measurement of data/information on some property(ies) of a phenomenon, object, or material by a recording device not in physical, intimate contact with the feature(s) under surveillance” (Short 1997). Scientists utilizing remote sensing are able to collect vast quantities of data quickly and efficiently for rapid analysis. In the last Technical Report, we provided an introduction to how remote sensing can be used for detecting vegetation stress and pollution. Remote sensing can be used for more far-ranging applications. In this report, we will discuss how remote sensing can be used to monitor vegetation changes, land development, and erosion in natural areas. As with stress detection and pollution, the data collected, and the sensors used to collect it, depends primarily on the user’s purpose for the data.