Continuous upgrading of preliminary inventories and repetition of detailed inventories using aerial photography or – in most cases – satellite imagery should enable to reach global coverage and to serve for validation of climate models. The use of digital terrain information in GIS greatly facilitates automated procedures of image analysis, data processing and modeling/interpretation of newly available information. Preparation of data products from satellite measurements must be based on a long-term program of data acquisition, archiving, product generation, and quality control. New detailed glacier inventories are now being compiled in areas not covered in detail so far or, for comparison, as a repetition of earlier inventories. This task is greatly facilitated by the launching of the ASTER/GLIMS program. Remote sensing at various scales (satellite imagery, aerophotogrammetry) and GIS technologies are combined with digital terrain information – often derived from along-track stereo ASTER imagery – in order to (1) overcome the difficulties of earlier satellite-derived preliminary inventories (area determination only), (2) enable automated image analyses, (3) thereby reduce the cost and time of compilation and (4) establish the basis for spatial analysis and modeling. More…