The Current Use of Remote-Sensing Data in Peat, Soil, Land-Cover and Crop Inventories in Scotland

The remote-sensing methodology developed, at the Macaulay Institute, for natural resource surveys is introduced and some recent mapping and environmental monitoring projects are reviewed. These include peat resource and peatland vegetation mapping in Lewis and North Harris, crop monitoring in Kincardineshire and land-cover mapping in the Buchan Area of Grampian Region, NE Scotland. The current use of remote-sensing data by the Peat Survey Section and the Soil Survey Department is reviewed for peat, soil and vegetation mapping. The principal current projects, which include the D.A.F.S. Bracken Survey of Scotland, the AGRISPINE Experiment for the U.K. National Remote Sensing Centre at R.A.E. Farnborough and the SAR 580 Experiment for the European Space Agency, are discussed.