Effectiveness of current remote sensing systems for monitoring environmental conditions at US Army installations

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Remote Sensing Group and the U.S. Army at Fort Lewis Washington have been developing and applying customized remote sensing and GIS techniques to support environmental management activities at the Fort Lewis and Yakima Training Center (YTC) installations. This effort has evaluated imagery from all currently available satellite systems including LANDSAT, SPOT and RADARSAT as well as aerial testbed systems such as AVIRIS, KYDICE, and AMPS. Combinations of these systems are being used quite effectively to monitor natural and training-related environmental changes at the YTC, which is an arid region training complex. In contrast, the effectiveness of these systems is much more limited in monitoring land cover changes in heavy rainfall areas, for example, at Fort Lewis. This paper describes both positive and negative results of studies at Fort Lewis to evaluate remote sensing systems and ranks their effectiveness for monitoring land cover conditions and changes of primary environmental management concern. The environmental management implications of high spectral and spatial resolution satellite systems scheduled for launch are also noted.