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Introduction
Compared to mid- and high-latitude areas, the tropical and subtropical region, due to its special climate, presents an all-year-round cloudy and rainy climate feature with a very long rainy season and rich precipitation even in short-term dry season. Besides, natural disasters, such as typhoon, earthquake, tsunami and flood, occur frequently in this region because of its special meteorological environment. Therefore, simple use of optical remote sensing will be greatly limited in tropical and subtropical region. Multi-source remote sensing techniques, e.g. synthetic aperture radar (SAR), with their ability to work in all day and all weather conditions, have distinctive advantages in this region. Unfortunately, most countries located in the tropical and subtropical region are developing countries, who are constrained by limited capability of remote sensing technologies. Therefore, there is an urgent need to establish a comprehensive platform for discussion and promotion of advanced remote sensing applications in this region.
The geographical environment in tropical and subtropical region is very complex, including complex meteorological, hydrological, topographic and ecological environment, which have brought great challenges for the remote sensing applications in this region. For instance, because of severe weathering, physical and chemical erosion, the topography in tropical and subtropical region is complex, such as the distinctive Danxia landform, karst landform, red weathering crusts and krasnozem. All these complex topography will result in problems of obvious shadow and buried structure on remote sensing images, which become a challenge in remote sensing monitoring. Additionally, complex topography, meteorological and hydrological environment are the cause of various natural disasters, such as karsts, landslides and debris flows, which make it more difficult for remote sensing application. Besides, the rapid urbanization put great pressures on the environment, such as the increase in atmospheric aerosol and water pollution, all of which pose a great challenge for the environmental remote sensing application in tropical and subtropical region.
To bridge the gap between great successes of remote sensing technology and challenging applications in tropical and subtropical region, this conference aims at providing facilitation and communication between experts from multidisciplinary domains so that they are able to discuss key issues about how to make full use of remote sensing technology to promote its comprehensive and effective applications in this region with a focus on the developing world.
Organizers
- Institute of Space and Earth Information Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
- National Remote Sensing Center for China
- Chinese National Committee for Remote Sensing
- Hong Kong Society for Remote Sensing, Hong Kong