Laser remote sensing techniques for measuring the primary natural atmospheric species, and detecting various chemical species have been developed by several research groups. During recent years, our interest has focused on detecting lower concentration levels of various species for air pollution monitoring, and for warnings of the presence of hazardous chemicals. Our long term efforts have focused on development of various applications of Raman and DIAL lidar techniques to measure atmospheric species. We have recently focused our efforts to develop LIDAR techniques using hyper-spectral, or multi-wavelength differential absorption measurements at infrared wavelengths, and resonance-Raman scattering at ultraviolet wavelengths. Supercontinuum laser beams are used as transmitter sources to provide a new capability to measure chemical species. These supercontinuum sources open the opportunity of applying well-developed techniques of hyper-spectral remote sensing for a new class of measurements to determine path concentrations of molecular species. Resonance-Raman scattering techniques using ultraviolet wavelengths are also being investigated to extend our detection ranges for small concentrations of chemical species. These two techniques appear to be capable of improving the opportunities for remote detection of various molecular species. Recent results, simulations and calculations are used to describe current capabilities, and indicate future directions for these applications in laser remote sensing.