The advances of desertification is a menace to agriculture and urban settlements in many areas of the world. Urban areas, natural resources and crop monitoring and critical for our development and sustainability.

Oceans cover 97% of the Earth’s surface and water controls the planet’s climate regulating it. Oceans contain the largest food and energy stocks, necessary for the development of an increasing population.

Katrina’s hurricane is a clear example of a devastating event due to an uncontrolled atmospheric event. Predicting hurricane trajectories helps save hundreds of lives and goods.

The cryosphere contains an immense amount of solid water. During the past decades the amount of ice has been continuously decreasing, while the mean sea level has been slightly rising. Cryospheric monitoring provides the clues of the past of our planet, and may provide a clear indication of its future.

Data gathered from a number of remote sensors must be processed before it is converted into usefull information. Classification techniques help in this process.

Remote Sensors are all based on some sort of electromagnetic phenomena (scattering or emission). Understanding the propagation of the electromagnetic waves and their interaction with matter is critical to design new sensors and understand the measurements.

Active and passive sensors, either in the microwave or in the visible and infrared parts of the spectrum are systematically used to gather data of a number of physical phenomena from ground, airplane and space.

Information (mainly from remote sensors) for the benefit of society is the moto of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems.