GIS and Remote Sensing

Biography:

Prof. Dr. Seyed Kazem Alavipanah is a faculty member of Remote Sensing and GIS department in University of Tehran. He has received his PhD in Remote Sensing and GIS (soil) in University of Ghent, Belgium, in 1997. He has received about 10 awards and honors and issued 10 books mainly on Remote Sensing and GIS, on art and humanities, and also published more than 250 articles and conducted more than 20 projects. He has membership in national institute of Iranian elites and editorial board in many Remote Sensing and Earth Sciences journals. He was a member of Intergovernmental Panel on Soils (ITPS), and coordinator of World Soil Report of North East and North Africa, FAO-UN from 2013 to 2015. He presented the theory of “Heat as an Indicator for Intelligence of the World” (relation of time, space, and thermal remote sensing).

Abstract:

Earth is an open system with a large incoming energy from the sun. So, according to the thermodynamic laws, it tries to reduce this gradient using all available physical and chemical processes. Meteorological and oceanographic circulations are of these efforts. “Life” is also another means of dissipating the solar heat. From this viewpoint, life should be viewed as the most sophisticated end in the continuum of development of natural dissipative structures from physical to chemical to autocatalytic to living systems.

All Human activities also alter heat balance in ecosystems. Respiration, bearing, production, construction etc. change entropy and temperature as well. The Earth smartly resists to these changes. This resistance also causes further temperature increase resulting in global warming. Global warming is subsequently the cause of some disasters such as climate change, drought, dust storms and water crisis. Falling level of Lake Urmia in Iran and occurrence of dust storm in MENA region are examples of such disasters.

Briefly, heat affects the life creation, living activities also affect the heat balance. Heat reciprocally influences the life conditions and these mutual interactions will be continued.

The application of TIR remote sensing in different fields such as air, water and soil, and the severe problems of desertification, deforestation, wind and water erosion, dust storms, drought, air and water pollutions have been recently investigated, but the key role of TIR remote sensing for the monitoring these changes has not been widely discussed. Therefore, the potential and constraints of some remote sensing methods and disciplines in Iranian deserts will be discussed. Furthermore, some important case studies such as Lut desert for thermal band calibration will be generally evaluated.

In future when highly precise measuring of heat and detection of thermal spectral signatures, in the Nano scale, will be possible, many of the world’s mysteries will be discovered. Therefore, a thermal remote sensing data may be simulated based on increasing the spectral and radiometric resolutions and higher ability for recording emitted energy leading to more accurate recognition of materials. NASA HyspIRI mission is an important step towards reaching this goal.