Ten years ago the author, together with eight co-authors, edited a textbook Remote Sensing for Environmental Sciences within the series on Ecological Studies of Springer-Verlag. At that time there were not yet many books available on remote sensing. The decade that has elapsed was marked by a spectacular development in this field. This development took place in many directions: by widening the areas of application, by improvements of the methods and the sensors, by the introduction of new versatile platforms, but also by deepening the knowledge of the theoretical foundations. This evolution...