Future aspects and potential of the remote sensing technology to meet the natural resource needs

Remote sensing (RS) technology is revolutionizing our understanding of Earth's observation (EO) and natural resources management. However, effective natural resource management needs accurate, advance, and timely information on existing as well as potential future techniques. Nowadays, there is a substantial amount of EO data, including airborne and spaceborne sensors, from several countries worldwide, which provide a massive amount of different data varying in input dimensions (spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution). These different remotely sensed datasets are being employed and used for different applications and multidisciplinary research in vegetation, soil and land, water, natural hazards, disaster mapping, and many more. These interdisciplinary research applications are mostly data driven and affected by the input dimensions for the outcomes, and are becoming an integral part with economic assets in the above research applications. In this chapter, we explicitly analyze the central potentials, limitations, challenges, and future aspects of the advancement of remotely sensed datasets in natural resource monitoring. This book is primarily aimed in applying and exploring the applications of advance RS in natural resources management. Different chapters highlighted the use of advance RS in areas such as forestry, hydrology, biodiversity conservation and habitat distribution, glacier mapping, geological mapping, disaster management, soil and agricultural monitoring, and wetland management. In this chapter, the history, current status, and potential, along with the major challenges and future aspects in RS for natural resources management were highlighted and discussed. Use of optical RS and SAR (synthetic aperture radar) in recent studies is considered. Furthermore, the use of advanced RS such as hyperspectral and LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) and their potential applications in natural resources management is also highlighted. In general, this chapter summarizes some significant advancements of RS technology, their potentials, challenges, and future aspects occurring over time, which provides extensive opportunities in the monitoring and management of natural resources in a sustainable way.