Remote sensing imagery from satellite sensors and aerial photography can play an important role in environmental impact studies. Remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have greatly expanded opportunities for data integration and analysis, modeling, and map production. As populations grow, as countries boost their economies, as landscapes change, governments have increasingly relied on up-to-date satellite imagery and other geospatial data for applications such as environmental planning, land registration, disaster response, public health, agricultural biodiversity conservation and forestry.

There is a growing interest in the application of remote sensing technologies to protect the global environment. An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an assessment of environmental health impact to humans, risk to ecological health, and changes to natural habitats. The purpose of the assessment is to ensure that decision-makers consider environmental impacts before deciding whether to proceed with new projects.

Environmental policy and administration have always required information as their cornerstone. Early information systems relied on physical storage of data and manual processing. With the advent of the computer, most of these data and procedures have been automated during the past two decades. As a result, environmental information processing has increasingly become more quantitative. Systems analysis techniques developed links between descriptive data of the landscape to the mix of management actions which maximizes a set of objectives. This mathematical approach to environmental management has been both stimulated and facilitated by modern information systems technology. The digital nature of mapped data in these systems provides a wealth of new analysis operations and an unprecedented ability to spatially model complex environmental issues.