Electromagnetic waves in remote sensing

Due to the advance of space-home remote sensing technology in recent decades, the transition from data to information of the earth environment has become of great importance. Interaction of electromagnetic waves with the earth environment should be well modeled and applied to information retrieval. The most important advances of po--larimetrie scattering for SAR imagery and vector radiative transfer theory for scattering and emission of natural media are briefly presented. Some examples from the SAR SIR-C and DMSP SSM/I observations and information inversions are demonstrated. Some key points for future research are discussed.