Remote sensing terminology: past experience and recent needs

Terminology is a key issue for a better understanding among people using various languages and dialects. Terminology accuracy is essential in order to remove risk of ambiguity during technical meetings and during all phases of international cooperation. It is important as well in education, knowledge dissemination and experience exchange. In our rapidly changing technological world, new terms emerge almost every day. It is crucial to keep up with the latest quantitative and qualitative developments and novelties of the terminology in advanced fields such as space science and technology. This is especially important in geoinformatics and remote sensing which have wide and ever extending applications in various domains. The importance of the correct use of remote sensing terms refers not only to people working in this field but also to experts in many disciplines who handle remote sensing data and information products. Researchers, professionals, students and decision makers of different nationalities should fully understand, interpret and translate into their native languages any term, definition or acronym found in articles, books, proceedings, specifications, documentation, etc. The issue is directly relevant to the world-wide polices for international cooperation in scientific, research and application areas putting a particular accent on Earth observations and environmental problems of global significance. It is not less important that users of remote sensing products have to be well familiarized with the relevant terms and definitions so that, for instance, the correct questions can be asked about the nature of a data set and any processing it has undergone. With this motivation, considering the importance of the matter and believing that the growing remote sensing community is an essential part of the today’s information society, we draw the attention on the recent needs and peculiarities of the creation of specialized bilingual and multilingual dictionaries and glossaries of remote sensing terms. Our vision about the working principles, the structure and content of dictionary entries, the updating process and web-based access is presented in the paper. This vision builds upon previous national and international attempts and makes use of on-going activities. It focuses on Earth observation technologies (tools and methods, data sources, data processing and application, etc.) and relies on the positive and negative experience of international teams in the elaboration of suchlike materials in this specific field of human knowledge and expertise.
Any interest in joint work and cooperation is welcome and highly appreciated.