GIS and Remote Sensing

14. Multi temporal data processing

Processing of multi-temporal images and change detection has been an active research field in remote sensing for decades. Although plenty successful application cases have been reported on the monitoring and detecting environmental change, there are enormous challenges on applying multi-temporal imagery to derive timely information on the earth’s environment and human activities. In recent years, a great progress has been observed to overcome technological obstacles by the development of new platforms and sensors. The wider availability of large archives of historical images also makes long-term change detection and modelling possible. Such a development stimulates further investigation in developing more advanced image processing methods and new approaches in handling image data in the time dimension. Over the past years, researchers have put forward large numbers of change detection techniques of remote sensing image and summarized or classified them from different viewpoints. It has been generally agreed that change detection is a complicated and integrated process. No existing approach is optimal and applicable to all cases.