Professors Liang and Ma Publish the Handbook of Satellite Land Products
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
The JC STEM Lab of Quantitative Remote Sensing is proud to announce the recent publication of the Handbook of Satellite Land Products, co-edited by Lab Director Prof. Shunlin Liang and Prof. Han Ma. This monumental academic reference work provides a systematic, global guide to the satellite-derived information products essential for observing, understanding, and managing the Earth system. The book, published by Elsevier, is available at https://shop.elsevier.com/books/handbook-of-satellite-land-products/liang/978-0-443-21485-1.
This major reference work has several notable features:
An Unprecedented Global Collaboration The compilation of this handbook was a massive international effort, bringing together over 300 contributing experts. The authors represent dozens of premier research institutions, universities, and space agencies across more than 15 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Japan, and Canada. Notable contributing institutions include the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), INRAE, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Boston University, and the University of Maryland, among many others.
Extensive Scope and Scale Spanning 134 chapters, the book meticulously details approximately 170 high-level satellite land products. To help readers quickly navigate this wealth of data, the products are strategically organized into five core Earth system processes and application domains:
Land Surface Radiation and Energy Budget:Â Covering products related to solar radiation, broadband albedo, surface temperature, and atmospheric aerosols.
Terrestrial Ecosystems and the Carbon Cycle:Â Detailing leaf area index, fractional vegetation and forest cover, biomass, gross primary production, and phenology.
Water Cycle and Cryosphere:Â Focusing on surface water, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, irrigation, and snow/ice dynamics.
Land Cover and Land Use:Â Highlighting global land cover dynamics, cropping intensities, and wildfire management.
Urban Environment:Â Examining impervious surfaces, 3D building footprints, and nighttime light-derived products.
Bridging the Gap Between Data and Application While the number of Earth observation satellites currently orbiting the planet continues to grow—with around 1200 currently in operation—only a small fraction of raw satellite data is utilized in practical decision-making. This handbook addresses this critical bottleneck. It offers students, researchers, and practitioners an authoritative, structured guide to understanding product retrieval algorithms, spatial and temporal resolutions, uncertainties, and real-world applications.