Many years ago EARSeL began the process of establishing a Special Interest Group on time series analysis of remote-ly sensed data. This action was stimulated by the open and mostly free access to satellite data archives providing the opportunity to study, for example, environmental changes over a period of more than 30 years which is the minimum time needed to study impacts of climate change. It is no surprise that timeseries analysis of satellite data is a growing field of interest in various scientific disciplines and the use of “old” data experiences a kind of renais-sance. Furthermore there is intensive use of new sensors providing data with global coverage in a very short time-scale and enabling in-depth analysis of environmental pro-cesses and anthropogenic impacts.

Land use change at UNESCO World Heritage Site Iguaçu National Park between 1973 and 2011 (Landsat); vegetation is shown in red, deforested areas in light red and blue colour.