Results are presented from studies of bare soils conducted during the NERC MSS-82, -83 and -84 campaigns. Test areas throughout southern and eastern England were selected to represent a wide range of British soils, and data from these sites are discussed in relation to the problems of intercalibrating ground and airborne data, as well as the effects of solar-sensor geometry on such intercalibration.Natural ground targets were used to intercalibrate the airborne data with ground radiometric measurements, and this was generally successful for non-soil surfaces in bands 3, 5 and 7 of the airborne scanner (Daedalus AADS 1268ATM). Results from band 9 were less satisfactory, possibly due to mismatch between the band sensed by the scanner and that measured on the ground.Soil surfaces showed significant across-track variations in reflectance, and this is related to spectral reflectance indicatrices measured at ground level which show considerable departures from Lambertian response, primarily in the principal plane. No evidence was found of a forward scattered (specular) component in the reflectedflux. The effectof solar-sensor geometry is further investigated through the study of soil surfaces within cloud shadows, and the observed reduction in variation with viewing angle down-Sun is attributed to the reduction in the directional component of irradiation, and consequent reduction of shadowing.Results are also presented which confirm that under some circumstances management practice can influence remotely sensed data in both the spatial and spectral domains. This is shown through the effect of deep ploughing, which caused a spectrally non-selective reduction in reflectance throughout the region 0,52-1·75 11m, and produced a corrugated microrelief which interacted with the scan-line direction to cause interference fringes on the images.