1. Geo-information Technology – What It Is, How It Was and Where It Is Heading to

The imperative of measuring and monitoring our environment is increasingly surfacing as the world’s population is rapidly approaching seven billion people, natural resources are rapidly being exploited and human activities continue to challenge the quality of land, water and air as well as the Earth’s climate. Today’s technology, consisting of ground-based, airborne and orbiting sensors combined with information and communication technology enables to collect, process, analyse and disseminate data about a great variety of processes occurring on our planet. The assembly of methods, approaches and devices developed and under development for dealing with the above challenges is called geo-information technology. Geo-information technology is a rapidly evolving engineering discipline, also called geomatics. Which activities does the field of geomatics comprise and how can geoscientists and professionals dealing with the environment benefit from this sophisticated technology? Where is the technology coming from and how did it evolve over time to what it is today? Where is it heading to? This chapter aims at addressing these topics.