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Abstract:Monitoring of the human-induced changes and the availability of reliable and methodologically consistent urban area maps are essential to support sustainable urban development on a global scale. The Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) is a project funded by the European Commission, Joint Research Centre, which aims at providing scientific methods and systems for reliable and automatic mapping of built-up areas from remote sensing data. In the frame of the GHSL, the opportunities offered by the recent availability of Sentinel-2 data are being explored using a novel image classification method, called Symbolic Machine Learning (SML), for detailed urban land cover mapping. In this paper, a preliminary test was implemented with the purpose of: (i) assessing the applicability of the SML classifier on Sentinel-2 imagery; (ii) evaluating the complementarity of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2; and (iii) understanding the added-value of Sentinel-2 with respect to Landsat for improving global high-resolution human settlement mapping. The overall objective is to explore areas of improvement, including the possibility of synergistic use of the different sensors. The results showed that noticeable improvement of the quality of the classification could be gained from the increased spatial detail and from the thematic contents of Sentinel-2 compared to the Landsat derived product as well as from the complementarity between Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 images.

This paper presents the analysis of Earth Observation data records collected between 1975 and 2014 for assessing the extent and temporal evolution of the built-up surface in the frame of the Global Human Settlement Layer project. The scale of the information produced by the study enables the assessment of the whole continuum of human settlements from rural hamlets to megacities. The study applies enhanced processing methods as compared to the first production of the GHSL baseline data. The major improvements include the use of a more refined learning set on built-up areas derived from Sentinel-1 data which allowed testing the added-value of incremental learning in big data analytics. Herein, the new features of the GHSL built-up grids and the methods are described and compared with the previous ones using a reference set of building footprints for 277 areas of interest. The results show a gradual improvement in the accuracy measures with a gain of 3.6% in the balanced accuracy, between the first production of the GHSL baseline and the latest GHSL multitemporal built-up grids. A validation of the multitemporal component is also conducted at the global scale establishing the reliability of the built-up layer across time.

Continuous global-scale mapping of human settlements in the service of international agreements calls for massive volume of multi-source, multi-temporal, and multi-scale earth observation data. In this paper, the latest developments in terms of processing big earth observation data for the purpose of improving the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) data are presented. Two experiments with Sentinel-1 and Landsat data collections were run leveraging on the Joint Research Centre Earth Observation Data and Processing Platform. A comparative analysis of the results of built-up areas extraction from different remote sensing data and processing workflows shows how the information production supported by data-intensive computing infrastructure for optimization and multiple testing can improve the output information reliability and consistency within the GHSL scope. The paper presents the processing workflows and the results of the two main experiments, giving insights into the enhanced mapping capabilities gained by analyzing Sentinel-1 and Landsat data-sets, and the lessons learnt in terms of handling and processing big earth observation data.

The Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) produces new global spatial information, evidence-based analytics describing the human presence on the planet that is based mainly on two quantitative factors: (i) the spatial distribution (density) of built-up structures and (ii) the spatial distribution (density) of resident people. Both of the factors are observed in the long-term temporal domain and per unit area, in order to support the analysis of the trends and indicators for monitoring the implementation of the 2030 Development Agenda and the related thematic agreements. The GHSL uses various input data, including global, multi-temporal archives of high-resolution satellite imagery, census data, and volunteered geographic information. In this paper, we present a global estimate for the Land Use Efficiency (LUE) indicator—SDG 11.3.1, for circa 10,000 urban centers, calculating the ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate between 1990 and 2015. In addition, we analyze the characteristics of the GHSL information to demonstrate how the original frameworks of data (gridded GHSL data) and tools (GHSL tools suite), developed from Earth Observation and integrated with census information, could support Sustainable Development Goals monitoring. In particular, we demonstrate the potential of gridded, open and free, local yet globally consistent, multi-temporal data in filling the data gap for Sustainable Development Goal 11. The results of our research demonstrate that there is potential to raise SDG 11.3.1 from a Tier II classification (manifesting unavailability of data) to a Tier I, as GHSL provides a global baseline for the essential variables called by the SDG 11.3.1 metadata.

Abstract:In the last few decades the magnitude and impacts of planetary urban transformations have become increasingly evident to scientists and policymakers. The ability to understand these processes remained limited in terms of territorial scope and comparative capacity for a long time: data availability and harmonization were among the main constraints. Contemporary technological assets, such as remote sensing and machine learning, allow for analyzing global changes in the settlement process with unprecedented detail. The Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) project set out to produce detailed datasets to analyze and monitor the spatial footprint of human settlements and their population, which are key indicators for the global policy commitments of the 2030 Development Agenda. In the GHSL, Earth Observation plays a key role in the detection of built-up areas from the Landsat imagery upon which population distribution is modelled. The combination of remote sensing imagery and population modelling allows for generating globally consistent and detailed information about the spatial distribution of built-up areas and population. The GHSL data facilitate a multi-temporal analysis of human settlements with global coverage. The results presented in this article focus on the patterns of development of built-up areas, population and settlements. The article reports about the present status of global urbanization (2015) and its evolution since 1990 by applying to the GHSL the Degree of Urbanisation definition of the European Commission Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG-Regio) and the Statistical Office of the European Communities (EUROSTAT). The analysis portrays urbanization dynamics at a regional level and per country income classes to show disparities and inequalities. This study analyzes how the 6.1 billion urban dwellers are distributed worldwide. Results show the degree of global urbanization (which reached 85% in 2015), the more than 100 countries in which urbanization has increased between 1990 and 2015, and the tens of countries in which urbanization is today above the global average and where urbanization grows the fastest. The paper sheds light on the key role of urban areas for development, on the patterns of urban development across the regions of the world and on the role of a new generation of data to advance urbanization theory and reporting.

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Data on global population distribution are a strategic resource currently in high demand in an age of new Development Agendas that call for universal inclusiveness of people. However, quality, detail, and age of census data varies significantly by country and suffers from shortcomings that propagate to derived population grids and their applications. In this work, the improved capabilities of recent remote sensing-derived global settlement data to detect and mitigate major discrepancies with census data is explored. Open layers mapping builtup presence were used to revise census units deemed as 'unpopulated' and to harmonize population distribution along coastlines. Automated procedures to detect and mitigate these anomalies, while minimizing changes to census geometry, preserving the regional distribution of population, and the overall counts were developed, tested, and applied. The two procedures employed for the detection of deficiencies in global census data obtained high rates of true positives, after verification and validation. Results also show that the targeted anomalies were significantly mitigated and are encouraging for further uses of free and open geospatial data derived from remote sensing in complementing and improving conventional sources of fundamental population statistics.