By Paul F. Kemp

Oceans, Lakes, and Inland Seas: A Virtual Issue on the Remote Sensing of Oceans, Estuaries, and Lakes

Since 1978, more than 85 articles have appeared in the Limnology and Oceanography family of journals describing the development and use of remote sensing tools to study processes in freshwater and marine systems. Remote sensing can be broadly defined as the use of drones, autonomous vehicles, moored instruments, sensors, satellites and other instruments that enable data acquisition at a distance. With the maturation of ocean and inland water observation networks, the time is right to provide a historical context for the increasing use of remote sensing systems. This collection includes selected influential articles representing work from groundwater to inland lakes, coastal systems and oceans. The virtual issue includes measurements of organic matter and phytoplankton, benthic systems and seagrasses from local to global scales. To introduce this collection, an introductory article by J. Marra (Oceans, Lakes, and Inland Seas: A Virtual Issue on the Remote Sensing of Oceans, Estuaries, and Lakes) summarizes major events in the development of remote sensing, and introduces many of the articles included in this virtual collection. The ASLO publication editors hope this collection will be enjoyable and useful to educators and researchers.

Read the virtual issue collection

Paul F. Kemp, Editor-in-Chief, Limnology and Oceanography: Methods
Marguerite A. Xenopoulos, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Limnology and Oceanography
Adrienne Sponberg, Editor-in-Chief, Limnology and Oceanography Bulletin
Patricia Soranno, Editor-in-Chief, Limnology and Oceanography: Letters

Cover image of Great Lakes from space (Credit: SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE)