Introduction

This proceedings volume contains papers presented during the conference on Remote Sensing for Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Hydrology XV. The conference was part of the 20th International Symposium on Remote Sensing sponsored by SPIE\u2014The International Society for Optical Engineering. The symposium was held at the Internationales Congress Center, Dresden, Germany, from 23rd to 26th of September 2013. The conference is dedicated to providing rapid dissemination of scientific and technical information, and attracted scientists and professionals from throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Approximately 40 oral and 20 poster presentations were given, covering a broad range of topics in the field of remote sensing applications in environmental science. The program was organized according to major themes, with 11 sessions on Agriculture: Nitrogen and chlorophyll Assessment, Irrigation and soil water content, and Crop monitoring (3); Ecosystems: Estuaries, rivers, lakes; Forest monitoring; Classification and change detection; Land characterization, and, Environmental monitoring (5); Hydrology: Energy Balance and evapotranspiration and Hydrology (2). Finally, a Joint Session with SAR Image Analysis, Modelling and Techniques conference included selected papers concerning the subject \u201cradar application in Agro-Hydrology\u201d. The poster presentations also had good representation from the above-mentioned themes. The presentations described both fundamental and applications-based research activities including modelling, laboratory and field experiments, and operational applications. We extend our thanks to Goffredo La Loggia of Universit\ue0 degli Studi di Palermo for chairing two of the sessions, to the presenters for their efforts and to the participants for their insightful questions and discussions. Special thanks are also due to the host city for the excellent venue and to the SPIE organizational staff for their support prior to, during, and after the symposium. We look forward to an even more successful conference in 2014