INTEGRATION OF REMOTELY-SENSED AND MODEL DATA TO PROVIDE THE SPATIAL INFORMATION BASIS FOR SUSTAINABLE LANDUSE

Sustainable development is by now generally accepted as the paramount objective of environmental policy. Environmental applications of Earth observation, on the other hand, have been successfully demonstrated o ver a wide range of monitoring activities, mostly with the aim of desc ribing the spatial distribution and time course of geophysical paramet ers and land surface structures. With landuse structures being of majo r influence on the sustainability of terrestrial ecosystems, and being also a highly suitable object of Earth observation, it is still an op en question, however, in which way Earth observation data can be proce ssed and integrated to provide an approximate indicator of sustainabil ity. Based on an ecological sustainability model developed by Ripl and his co-workers at Berlin Technical University, this question was inve stigated in the framework of the joint project ''Development of a Land -Water-Management Concept to Decrease Matter Losses to Open Waters'' ( Stor project), which was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Rese arch and Technology. Present results may be summarized as follows: 1. Apart from hydrological point measurements, there are several spatial parameters which are of indicative value as to sustainability, especia lly the spatio-temporal distribution of biomass, surface temperature, and precipitation. 2. To provide the spatial information basis for enh anced efficiency of immediate measures such as reforestation, agricult ural extension etc., a global information system (GIS) concept was dev eloped and demonstrated which is based on a landuse/vegetation classif ication derived from Landsat TM data, a digital evaluation mode (DEM) and a relief dependent water distribution model (WDM). Further implica tions such as the organisation of information systems which are to ser ve sustainability strategies are discussed. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.