Soft computing is a new emerging discipline rooted in a group of technologies, such as knowledge-based systems, neural networks, fuzzy set theory, probabilistic and evidential approaches, genetic algorithms, that have the common characteristic of mimicking the remarkable human ability in making decisions in an environment of uncertainty and imprecision. Encouraged by the growing interest in soft computing and by the scientific effort already developed within the remote sensing community, the International Workshop on Soft Computing in Remote Sensing Data Analysis held in Milan on December 4-5, 1995, brought together researchers and scientists engaged in related themes. Papers presented at the Workshop are grouped in this volume into four sections. The first section contains plenary lectures, the others open with two invited papers and deal with remote sensing classification by neural networks and fuzzy sets, symbolic approaches in geographic information processing, and remote sensing image analysis respectively.
