The Mekong Basin in Southeast Asia is one of the largest international river basins in the world. Its abundant natural resources are shared by six riparian countries and provide the basis for the livelihoods of more than 75 million people. However, ongoing socio-economic growth and related anthropogenic interventions impact the region’s ecosystems, and there is an urgent need for the monitoring of the basin's land surface dynamics. Remote sensing has evolved as a key tool for this task, allowing for up-to-date analyses and regular monitoring of environmental dynamics beyond physical or political boundaries and at various temporal and spatial scales. This book serves as a forum for remote-sensing scientists with an interest in the Mekong River Basin to present their recent basin-related works as well as applied case studies of the region. A broad range of sensors from high to medium resolution, and from multispectral to SAR systems, are applied, covering topics such as land cover/land use classification and comparison, time series analyses of climate variables, vegetation structure and vegetation productivity, as well as studies on flood mapping or water turbidity monitoring. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Remote Sensing.

This book about the Mekong Delta presents a unique collection of state-of-the-art contributions by international experts from different scientific disciplines about the characteristics and pressing water-related challenges of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. The Mekong Delta belongs to one of the areas, which are to expect the largest challenges concerning environmental change and climate change induced sea level rise . The Delta acts as the “rice bowl” of Southeast Asia and is home to over 17 Million people, who need to cope with ecologic as well as socio-economic changes linked to the rapid economic development of the country. Annual floods, severe droughts, salt water intrusion, degrading water quality, tropical cyclones, hydrologic changes due to hydropower projects in the upstream of the Mekong, coastal erosion, and the loss of biodiversity are some of the problems in the region. Heterogeneous resource management responsibilities, and the fact that the Mekong – and thus also the Delta – is influenced by six countries aggravate the situation. Integrated water resources management and fostered cooperation and information exchange are pressing needs for the sustainable development of the Delta.

Remote Sensing is collecting and interpreting information on targets without being in physical contact with the objects. Aircraft, satellites ...etc are the major platforms for remote sensing observations. Unlike electrical, magnetic and gravity surveys that measure force fields, remote sensing technology is commonly referred to methods that employ electromagnetic energy as radio waves, light and heat as the means of detecting and measuring target characteristics. Geoscience is a study of nature world from the core of the earth, to the depths of oceans and to the outer space. This branch of study can help mitigate volcanic eruptions, floods, landslides ... etc terrible human life disaster and help develop ground water, mineral ores, fossil fuels and construction materials. Also, it studies physical, chemical reactions to understand the distribution of the nature resources. Therefore, the geoscience encompass earth, atmospheric, oceanography, pedology, petrology, mineralogy, hydrology and geology. This book covers latest and futuristic developments in remote sensing novel theory and applications by numerous scholars, researchers and experts. It is organized into 26 excellent chapters which include optical and infrared modeling, microwave scattering propagation, forests and vegetation, soils, ocean temperature, geographic information , object classification, data mining, image processing, passive optical sensor, multispectral and hyperspectral sensing, lidar, radiometer instruments, calibration, active microwave and SAR processing. Last but not the least, this book presented chapters that highlight frontier works in remote sensing information processing. I am very pleased to have leaders in the field to prepare and contribute their most current research and development work. Although no attempt is made to cover every topic in remote sensing and geoscience, these entire 26 remote sensing technology chapters shall give readers a good insight. All topics listed are equal important and significant.

This volume comprises an outstanding variety of chapters on Earth Observation based time series analyses, undertaken to reveal past and current land surface dynamics for large areas. What exactly are time series of Earth Observation data? Which sensors are available to generate real time series? How can they be processed to reveal their valuable hidden information? Which challenges are encountered on the way and which pre-processing is needed? And last but not least: which processes can be observed? How are large regions of our planet changing over time and which dynamics and trends are visible? These and many other questions are answered within this book “Remote Sensing Time Series Analyses – Revealing Land Surface Dynamics”. Internationally renowned experts from Europe, the USA and China present their exciting findings based on the exploitation of satellite data archives from well-known sensors such as AVHRR, MODIS, Landsat, ENVISAT, ERS and METOP amongst others. Selected review and methods chapters provide a good overview over time series processing and the recent advances in the optical and radar domain. A fine selection of application chapters addresses multi-class land cover and land use change at national to continental scale, the derivation of patterns of vegetation phenology, biomass assessments, investigations on snow cover duration and recent dynamics, as well as urban sprawl observed over time.

Water resources are the most valuable resources of sustainable socio-economic development, which is significantly affected by climate change and human activities. Water resources assessment is an urgent need for implementation of the perfect water resources management, but it is difficult to accurately evaluate the quantity and quality of water resources, especially in arid regions and high-altitude regions with sparse gauged data. This book hosts 24 papers devoted to remote sensing in hydrology and water resources management, which summarizes the recent advancement in remote sensing technology for hydrology analysis such as satellite remote sensing for water resources management, water quality monitoring and evaluation using remote sensing data, remote sensing for detecting the global impact of climate extremes, the use of remote sensing data for improved calibration of hydrological models, and so on. In general, the book will contribute to promote the application of remote sensing technology in water resources.

Celebrating the people of the Mekong subregion, this remarkable atlas is more than just a series of maps; this book also includes remote sensing images and essential cultural information about one of the most ethnically and biologically diverse regions of the world. The subregion includes Cambodia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam, and Yunnan Province in China.

A volume in the three-volume Remote Sensing Handbook series, Remote Sensing of Water Resources, Disasters, and Urban Studies documents the scientific and methodological advances that have taken place during the last 50 years. The other two volumes in the series are Remotely Sensed Data Characterization, Classification, and Accuracies, and Land Reso

This book provides a step-by-step guide on how to use various publicly available remotely sensed time series data sources for environmental monitoring and assessment. Readers will learn how to extract valuable information on global changes from a 20-year collection of ready-to-use remotely sensed data through the free open statistical software R and its geographic data analysis and modeling tools. The case studies are from the Mediterranean region—a designated hot spot regarding climate change effects. Each chapter is dedicated to specific remote sensing products chosen for their spatial resolution. The methods used are adapted from large-scale to smaller-scale problems for different land cover areas. Features Includes real-world applications of environmental remotely sensed data Analyzes the advantages and restrictions of each data source Focuses on a wide spectrum of applications, such as hydrology, vegetation changes, land surface temperature, fire detection, and impacts Includes R computer codes with explanatory comments and all applications use only freely available remotely sensed data Presents a step-by-step processing through open source GIS and statistical analysis software Advanced Environmental Monitoring with Remote Sensing Time Series Data and R describes and provides details on recent advances concerning publicly available remotely sensed time series data in environmental monitoring and assessment. This book is a must-have practical guide for environmental researchers, professionals, and students.

The Mekong Delta of Vietnam is one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world. The Mekong River fans out over an area of about 40,000 sq kilometers and over the course of many millennia has produced a region of fertile alluvial soils and constant flows of energy. Today about a fourth of the Delta is under rice cultivation, making this area one of the premier rice granaries in the world. The Delta has always proven a difficult environment to manipulate, however, and because of population pressures, increasing acidification of soils, and changes in the Mekong’s flow, environmental problems have intensified. The changing way in which the region has been linked to larger flows of commodities and capital over time has also had an impact on the region: For example, its re-emergence in recent decades as a major rice-exporting area has linked it inextricably to global markets and their vicissitudes. And most recently, the potential for sea level increases because of global warming has added a new threat. Because most of the region is on average only a few meters above sea level and because any increase of sea level will change the complex relationship between tides and down-river water flow, the Mekong Delta is one of the areas in the world most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. How governmental policy and resident populations have in the past and will in coming decades adapt to climate change as well as several other emerging or ongoing environmental and economic problems is the focus of this collection.

With contributions from a panel of researchers from a wide range of fields, the chapters of this book focus on evaluating the potential, utility and application of high resolution satellite precipitation products in relation to surface hydrology.