遥感数据与土地资源在时空特性方面具有高度的一致性，土地资源研究长期是遥感应用的主要领域之一。过去数十年来，国内外开展了大量的土地资源与环境遥感应用研究，遥感技术为土地资源研究提供了丰富的信息源和实现手段，拓展了土地资源的研究内容，强化了土地资源的研究程度。随着遥感技术的发展和应用研究的深入，针对日益多样化的实际需求，创新研究方法，加强与传统学科的有机结合，在提取系列化专题信息基础上，开展不同时空尺度的综合性分析与评估，切实满足全球变化研究和实现区域可持续发展的需要，仍然是土地资源遥感应用研究应该关注的主要发展方向。

Remote sensing applied to land resource research has received increasing interest because of the excellent agreement of the temporal and spatial characteristics of remote sensing data and land resources. In the past decades, the development of remote sensing technology has greatly enriched the method and content of geography research. As one of most important directions of geography research, the research on land resources and the environment is carried out using remote sensing techniques. Remote sensing provides voluminous amounts of information and improves the depth of land resource research. With the support of the periodic acquisition of information via remote sensing, data information in land resource research is subjected to dynamic monitoring and updating. Extensive dynamic land resource information, such as quantity, distribution, composition, and type conversion, can be extracted from remote sensing data. Modern process analysis and change prediction for land resources have gradually become research hotpots because of the results of the monitoring of land resource changes. The research directions in relation to the remote sensing of land resources should focus on the following vectors in the future. First, research methods should be innovated to match the application requirements in China. Many research studies in China still focus on tracking, citing, consummating, and verifying the content and method of foreign models. Models suitable for the Chinese environment should be developed in the future. Second, remote sensing applications should be combined effectively with traditional disciplines. Maintaining consistency with traditional research in terms of concepts and connotations, clarifying the relationship of remote sensing parameters and their geoscience implications, and realizing the organic combination of land resource information and remote sensing parameters can improve the applicability and interpretability of research results. Third, the development of remote sensing applications for land resources should meet the requirements of global change research and consider large spatial regions, long time processes, and multiple observation angles. Given the different geographical elements of different regions, the consistency of temporal and spatial cognition should be emphasized against the background of global change research. Finally, applications should promote comprehensive analysis and evaluation to embody the relationship between human beings and land resources. The influence of this relationship on the sustainability and quality of the development process should also be studied.