Supporting Global Environmental Change Research: A Review of Trends and Knowledge Gaps in Urban Remote Sensing

Wentz, Elizabeth A.; Anderson, Sharolyn; Fragkias, Michail; Netzband, Maik; Mesev, Victor; Myint, Soe W.; Quattrochi, Dale A.; Rahman, Atiqur; Seto, Karen C.

doi:10.3390/rs6053879

Cited by 100 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 151 publications

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“…Two new sources of such data may come from remote sensing and citizen-generated maps and surveys. More-frequent and higherresolution imagery may help identify the type and quality of housing and physical infrastructure and track new construction (44)(45)(46). Working collaborations between local governments, communities, and civic organizations using new data collection, mapping, and reporting technologies will be essential to create detailed evidence that is accurate, verifiable, and expressive of residents' priorities (47,48).…”

Section: Discussion and Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heterogeneity and scale of sustainable development in cities

Brelsford

Lobo

Hand

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

165

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Rapid worldwide urbanization is at once the main cause and, potentially, the main solution to global sustainable development challenges. The growth of cities is typically associated with increases in socioeconomic productivity, but it also creates strong inequalities. Despite a growing body of evidence characterizing these heterogeneities in developed urban areas, not much is known systematically about their most extreme forms in developing cities and their consequences for sustainability. Here, we characterize the general patterns of income and access to services in a large number of developing cities, with an emphasis on an extensive, high-resolution analysis of the urban areas of Brazil and South Africa. We use detailed census data to construct sustainable development indices in hundreds of thousands of neighborhoods and show that their statistics are scale-dependent and point to the critical role of large cities in creating higher average incomes and greater access to services within their national context. We then quantify the general statistical trajectory toward universal basic service provision at different scales to show that it is characterized by varying levels of inequality, with initial increases in access being typically accompanied by growing disparities over characteristic spatial scales. These results demonstrate how extensions of these methods to other goals and data can be used over time and space to produce a simple but general quantitative assessment of progress toward internationally agreed sustainable development goals.neighborhoods | slums | urban services | spatial correlations | inequality T he current worldwide growth of cities presents at once an unprecedented historical opportunity for universal socioeconomic development and an immense challenge to global sustainability (1, 2). The mechanisms that generate improved living conditions and economic growth in cities-and that typically also increase overall energy and resource consumption-are still only partially understood (1-5) and remain hard to disentangle.Many recent studies have emphasized the environmental and geophysical adverse consequences of an increasing proportion of the planet's population living in cities and of the acceleration of this transformation in recent decades (6-8). The type and scope of these impacts vary but include air and water pollution, land-cover change, loss of natural habitats, strain on water resources, higher demand for energy, and rising greenhouse gas emissions (1,8,9).Conversely, the positive correlation between urbanization and many important dimensions of human development has also become increasingly clear. At the national level, the association between higher levels of urbanization and per capita economic productivity has been clear for some time (2). More recently, as city-scale data have become available, evidence has emerged for broader relationships between urbanization and better health, education, longer lifespans, and greater access to basic services, such as water or electricity, at lower...

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Section: Discussion and Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heterogeneity and scale of sustainable development in cities

Brelsford

Lobo

Hand

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

165

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…This is indicative of continuous removal of natural cover as well as ecosystem destruction. Modification of natural cover such as vegetation will certainly reconfigure the energy balance (temperature development) such as the formation of an urban heat island (UHI) due to impervious surfaces, which has been established and well documented based on building configurations including shape, size, and geometry [11]. Therefore, the model result provides an insight into the need for a carbon mitigation strategy and green urban design in Abuja due to potential disappearance of vegetation cover.…”

Section: Land Use Change Model Implementation and Validationmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The pathway to understanding the process of urbanization can be established by deliberate monitoring of biophysical and socioeconomic conditions of the existing and transformed urban areas [11]. However, reliable information on the biophysical dimensions of urban landscapes, especially the urban LULC of the built environment, can be difficult to obtain.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of Settlement Expansion and Urban Growth Modelling Using Geoinformation for Assessing Potential Impacts of Urbanization on Climate in Abuja City, Nigeria

et al. 2016

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This study analyzed the spatiotemporal pattern of settlement expansion in Abuja, Nigeria, one of West Africa's fastest developing cities, using geoinformation and ancillary datasets. Three epochs of Land-use Land-cover (LULC) maps for 1986, 2001 and 2014 were derived from Landsat images using support vector machines (SVM). Accuracy assessment (AA) of the LULC maps based on the pixel count resulted in overall accuracy of 82%, 92% and 92%, while the AA derived from the error adjusted area (EAA) method stood at 69%, 91% and 91% for 1986, 2001 and 2014, respectively. Two major techniques for detecting changes in the LULC epochs involved the use of binary maps as well as a post-classification comparison approach. Quantitative spatiotemporal analysis was conducted to detect LULC changes with specific focus on the settlement development pattern of Abuja, the federal capital city (FCC) of Nigeria. Logical transitions to the urban category were modelled for predicting future scenarios for the year 2050 using the embedded land change modeler (LCM) in the IDRISI package. Based on the EAA, the result showed that urban areas increased by more than 11% between 1986 and 2001. In contrast, this value rose to 17% between 2001 and 2014. The LCM model projected LULC changes that showed a growing trend in settlement expansion, which might take over allotted spaces for green areas and agricultural land if stringent development policies and enforcement measures are not implemented. In conclusion, integrating geospatial technologies with ancillary datasets offered improved understanding of how urbanization processes such as increased imperviousness of such a magnitude could influence the urban microclimate through the alteration of natural land surface temperature. Urban expansion could also lead to increased surface runoff as well as changes in drainage geography leading to urban floods.

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“…Remote sensing continues to contribute to detecting and understanding the interplay between urban land covers and urban heat [29][30][31][32]. While little research takes place at the single-building level, recent contributions highlight the importance of not just of the urban surface materials but the density, juxtaposition, and pattern of land features [33][34][35].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rooftop Surface Temperature Analysis in an Urban Residential Environment

et al. 2015

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Abstract:The urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon is a significant worldwide problem caused by rapid population growth and associated urbanization. The UHI effect exacerbates heat waves during the summer, increases energy and water consumption, and causes the high risk of heat-related morbidity and mortality. UHI mitigation efforts have increasingly relied on wisely designing the urban residential environment such as using high albedo rooftops, green rooftops, and planting trees and shrubs to provide canopy coverage and shading. Thus, strategically designed residential rooftops and their surrounding landscaping have the potential to translate into significant energy, long-term cost savings, and health benefits. Rooftop albedo, material, color, area, slope, height, aspect and nearby landscaping are factors that potentially contribute. To extract, derive, and analyze these rooftop parameters and outdoor landscaping information, high resolution optical satellite imagery, LIDAR (light detection and ranging) point clouds and thermal imagery are necessary. Using data from the City of Tempe AZ (a 2010 population of 160,000 people), we extracted residential rooftop footprints and rooftop configuration parameters from airborne LIDAR point clouds and QuickBird satellite imagery (2.4 m spatial resolution imagery). Those parameters were analyzed against surface temperature data from the MODIS/ASTER airborne simulator (MASTER). MASTER images provided fine resolution (7 m) surface temperature data for residential areas during daytime and night time. Utilizing these data, ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to evaluate the relationships between residential building OPEN ACCESSRemote Sens. 2015, 7 12136 rooftops and their surface temperature in urban environment. The results showed that daytime rooftop temperature was closely related to rooftop spectral attributes, aspect, slope, and surrounding trees. Night time temperature was only influenced by rooftop spectral attributes and slope.

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Supporting Global Environmental Change Research: A Review of Trends and Knowledge Gaps in Urban Remote Sensing

Cited by 100 publications

References 151 publications

Heterogeneity and scale of sustainable development in cities

Heterogeneity and scale of sustainable development in cities

Analysis of Settlement Expansion and Urban Growth Modelling Using Geoinformation for Assessing Potential Impacts of Urbanization on Climate in Abuja City, Nigeria

Rooftop Surface Temperature Analysis in an Urban Residential Environment

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