Remote Sensing of Environmental Impacts for IMACS

The Impact Measurement and Conservation System (IMACS) was developed to calculate environmental and human condition impacts and to apply conservation required to neutralize such impacts for products and services purchased by end-user consumers (1- 6). With its implementation, the IMACS system would allow the fastest return to the best approximation of pre-industrial sustainable conditions (Global warming reversal and wildlife area restoration). All environmental impacts take place on a location. Location Based Impacts (LBIs) are environmental impacts assigned to parcels (land) or designated areas (marine). Under IMACS, LBIs are distributed in a dynamic fashion over the products made and services rendered using these areas. This article focuses on the use of remote sensing instruments systems used to accurately measure the underlying variables needed for parcel and designated area delineation and the environmental impacts taking place on them (LBIs). These impacts include landscape change and the subsequent use as cultivated area, changes in biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, fresh water consumption, soil and surface water acidification, soil & sediment loss, coastal area at risk of flooding, atmospheric ozone layer damage and includes all applicable types of conserving impacts, including wildlife area conservation, carbon storage and protection of coastal areas from flooding due to sea level rise. Using currently available remote sensing technology and after training using ground data, area mapping, parcel delineation and the measurement of most environmental impact variables can be done using satellites, by using aerial sensors or by using combinations. Implementation of IMACS requires the development of data products that combine remote sensing based environmental data with civic databases (users of parcel and designated areas), allowing easy, automated and low-cost extraction of LBI data.