Advantages of Satellite Remote Sensing Page 6 of 6   Satellites have the ability to provide a general view of large area of the earth's surface in a single image rather than in a piece-by-piece fashion. For example, to cover the area of a single Landsat image more than 1600 aerial photographs at a scale of 1:20,000 with no overlap are required. Satellite remote sensing is highly versatile enabling observations to be made of both large and very small areas. This ability to alter the scale of the data collected has made remote sensing techniques applicable to a wide variety of applications. A high spatial resolution satellite image, which shows a lot of detail, is suitable for the use of traffic monitoring. Whereas a low spatial resolution image, which provides information over a large area, is suitable for meteorological applications, such as weather forecasting. Now explore the web and try and find up-to-date meteorological imagery. The Met Office is a good site to have a look at as it provides weather and climate satellite imagery for Europe, Africa, The Americas and Asia/Australasia. Satellite remote sensing allows information to be obtained across several different wavelengths, many of which are outside the normal human visual range. Click on the thumbnail to enlarge the image Often remote sensing systems are designed to acquire images of the same part of the earth surface at specific times. Thus the images obtained can be used to monitor environmental changes and the rates of these changes can be evaluated. For example, a decline in the vegetation index may indicate that drought conditions may be developing, and therefore acts as a warning system, which enables remedial action to be taken and ensures that a disaster is averted. Now attempt the Satellite Image Interpretation Exercise | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Page 6 of 6