In this paper some critical remarks on applying remote sensing method to a river study are proposed. These remarks are partly affected by some consequences of the recent Landsat database liberalization, which can be queried and downloaded for free till December 2008. It is well known that the Landsat mission is collecting medium resolution remote sensed images for more than 38 years. In fact Landsat 1, former known as ERTS – Earth Resources Technology Satellites, has been put into orbit on July, 23 th 1972. So we take as an instance the Quieto river valley (Mirna) in the Istrian peninsula (Croatia), on which we performed a multitemporal analysis on the basis of five medium resolution satellite scenes, taken in different years. We tried to highlight strengths and weaknesses of using remote sensing method in order to control the land, in particular reference to the result accuracy.
