Integrating Scale in Remote Sensing and GIS serves as the most comprehensive documentation of the scientific and methodological advances that have taken place in integrating scale and remote sensing data. This work addresses the invariants of scale, the ability to change scale, measures of the impact of scale, scale as a parameter in process models, and the implementation of multiscale approaches as methods and techniques for integrating multiple kinds of remote sensing data collected at varying spatial, temporal, and radiometric scales. Researchers, instructors, and students alike will benefit from a guide that has been pragmatically divided into four thematic groups: scale issues and multiple scaling; physical scale as applied to natural resources; urban scale; and human health/social scale. Teeming with insights that elucidate the significance of scale as a foundation for geographic analysis, this book is a vital resource to those seriously involved in the field of GIScience.

Contents:
Section 1: Thermal Infrared Data for Assessment and Quantification of Surface Energy Fluxes and Soil Moisture. 1. Estimating environmental variables using thermal remote sensing. 2. Land surface temperature retrieval techniques and applications (Case of the AVHRR) 3. High spatial resolution mapping of surface energy balance components with remotely sensed data. 4. Estimating spatially-distributed surface fluxes in a semi-arid Great Basin desert using Landsat TM thermal data. 5. Coupling thermal infrared and visible satellite measurements to infer biophysical variables at the land surface. 6. Rapid soil drying and its implication for remote sensing of soil moisture and the surface energy budgets. 7. Mapping surface energy fluxes with radiometric temperature. Section 2: Thermal Infrared Data for Assessment of Ecosystem Health. 8. Thermal infrared measurement as an indicator of planet ecosystem health. 9. Exergy analysis of ecosystems: Establishing a role for thermal remote sensing. Section 3: Thermal Infrared Instruments and Calibration. 10. Calibration of thermal infrared (TIR) sensors. 11. MUST: A MediUm Scale surface Temperature mission dedicated to environment and agriculture.

Integrating Scale in Remote Sensing and GIS serves as the most comprehensive documentation of the scientific and methodological advances that have taken place in integrating scale and remote sensing data. This work addresses the invariants of scale, the ability to change scale, measures of the impact of scale, scale as a parameter in process models, and the implementation of multiscale approaches as methods and techniques for integrating multiple kinds of remote sensing data collected at varying spatial, temporal, and radiometric scales. Researchers, instructors, and students alike will benefit from a guide that has been pragmatically divided into four thematic groups: scale issues and multiple scaling; physical scale as applied to natural resources; urban scale; and human health/social scale. Teeming with insights that elucidate the significance of scale as a foundation for geographic analysis, this book is a vital resource to those seriously involved in the field of GIScience.