Application of remote sensing to forest hydrology

The paper reviews the application of remote sensing to forest hydrology. After discussing the general advantages and disadvantages of satellite remote sensing, the estimation of precipitation, changes in soil moisture, runoff, radiation components, sensible heat flux, latent heat flux, soil heat flux, changes in energy storage in biomass, primary production and monitoring the extent, type and density of forests are reviewed. Finally, the paper looks forward to future developments and concludes that these are likely to come from the use of multitemporal data, combined analysis of different types of remotely sensed data and of remotely sensed and ground data, improved image analysis techniques and combining satellite data with models.