On the basis of massive input and concerted efforts of the state for a long period of time, China's remote sensing technology has basically reached the internationally advanced level. During the mid-1990s, on the basis of scientific and thorough feasibility studies and experts' evaluation, the former State Science and Technology Commission listed the integrated application studies of remote sensing, geographic information system and GPS as a priority among the priorities defined by the Program addressing major S&T issues during the 9th Five-Year Plan period. The said integrated studies have covered numerous important projects such as the establishment of the national remote dynamic information service system for basic resources and environment, the upgrading of major natural disasters monitoring and assessment operational system, the development of localized geographic information basic software, the promotion of GIS industrialization and demonstrated applications, remote sensing cutting edge studies and the development of national space information infrastructures. Thanks to the 5-year tireless and painstaking efforts, the integrated studies has fulfilled its tasks as prescribed and achieved encouraging results on the applications and industrialization of the remote sensing technologies with RMB 335 million for direct economic benefits and RMB 1.5 billion the indirect ones. It has also achieved remarkable social benefits in the fields of resources survey and disasters alleviation. These achievements indicate that China's remote sensing technologies have risen from the experimental phase during the past 6th, 7th and 8th Five-Year Plan periods to the current operational phase. Natural disaster alleviation is a major topic for realizing the social sustainable development. The concerted efforts on addressing the major issues in the field of natural disasters monitoring and assessment have led to series achievements such as the establishment of integrated disaster monitoring and assessment operation system focusing on draughts and floods, and the improvement of remote sensing data acquisition and transmission, data editing and processing, disasters assessment and online distribution and charts output for three fields such as real time transmission of air born radar data, high resolution remote sensing and extensive watch of meteorological satellites. These systems were put into operation when the flash floods attacked Yangtze River, Nenjiang River and Songhuajiang River in 1998 and provided first hand information on disasters to the national decision making authorities. Through the development of geographical information software and application demonstrations, it has basically established China's geographic information software industry. Thanks to 5-year efforts, China's geographic information software industry has taken preliminary shape with its market share rising from almost zero in 1995 to the current 28.9%, exceeding its prescribed 15% target.

Along with the development of the domestic geographic information industry, the enterprises dedicated to the development of Chinese geographic information software and associated technical services mushroomed and gained remarkable growth. The revenues of products sale and technical services harvested by these enterprises have reached RMB 250 million and the output value of national economy stimulated by the said industrial development RMB 1.3 billion.  

Through the close tracking after the latest international development in the said field, China has landed 92% accuracy for the high resolution classification and identification of crops, the satellite based rice and cotton identification and area calculation. In addition, China has mastered other related technologies such as fast processing of large remote sensing images and space database support and integration and quantitative analysis of remote sensing data, which remarkably shorten the cycle of space data acquisition and information updating.

The establishment of the national remote sensing dynamic information service network for resources and environment and the disasters monitoring and assessment operational system for droughts and floods has made China one of the few countries in the world possessing national remote sensing information service system. The establishment of China's GIS software industry has made the contributions to the information process in the country.