Urban environment monitoring in industrial city using remote sensing of snow cover

Abstract

The dynamic development of modern cities requires new solutions to urban planning and management by local regional authorities. The paper focuses on ecological indicators based on Earth Remote Sensing Data (ERSD) of the snow cover with the purpose to evaluate the city and to plan ecological environment protection strategy. The paper deals with the method of using space images to assess the snow cover pollution of Chelyabinsk, a large Russian industrial city. The assessment of the snow cover of Chelyabinsk was carried out by comparing the heavy metals concentrations with the Landsat 8 data. The spectral indices were calculated for fourteen sites evenly distributed over the urban area of four types: courtyards, car parks, industrial zones and roads. We found a statistically significant difference between the Swirl/Green index and the site type and a correlation with the concentrations of dissolved and suspended forms of heavy metals in snow cover. Snow cover indices can be used as ecological indicators of urban environment.