New urban map of Eurasia using MODIS and multi-source geospatial data

Urban areas are of paramount significance to both the individuals and communities at local and regional scales. However, the rapid growth of urban areas exerts effects on climate, biodiversity, hydrology, and natural ecosystems worldwide. Therefore, regular and up-to-date information related to urban extent is necessary to monitor the impacts of urban areas at local, regional, and potentially global scales. This study presents a new urban map of Eurasia at 500 m resolution using multi-source geospatial data, including Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data of 2013, population density of 2012, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) nighttime lights of 2012, and constructed Impervious Surface Area (ISA) data of 2010. The Eurasian urban map was created using the threshold method for these data, combined with references of fine resolution Landsat and Google Earth imagery. The resultant map was compared with nine global urban maps and was validated using random sampling method. Results of the accuracy assessment showed high overall accuracy of the new urban map of 94%. This urban map is one product of the 20 land cover classes of the next version of Global Land Cover by National Mapping Organizations.     

Monitoring growth of built-up areas in indo-gangetic plain using multi-sensor remote sensing data

This paper provides an approach for rapid and accurate estimation of built-up areas on a per pixel-basis using a integration of two coarse spatial resolution remote sensing data namely DMSP-OLS and MODIS NDVI. The DMSP-OLS data due to its free availability, high temporal resolution and wide swath was used for regional level mapping of built-up areas. However, due to its low radiometric resolution, the built-up areas cannot be estimated accurately from the DMSP-OLS data. In present study, the DMSP-OLS data was combined with MODIS NDVI data to develop an Human Settlement Index (HSI) image, which estimated the fraction of built-up area on a per pixel basis. The resultant HSI image conveys more information than both the individual datasets. These temporal HSI images were then used for monitoring urban growth in Indo-Gangetic plains during the 2001–2007 time period. Thus, the present research can be very useful for regional level monitoring of built-up areas from coarse resolution data within limited time and minimal cost.     

Remote sensing and social sensing for socioeconomic systems: A comparison study between nighttime lights and location-based social media at the 500 m spatial resolution

With the advent of “social sensing” in the Big Data era, location-based social media (LBSM) data are increasingly used to explore anthropogenic activities and their impacts on the environment. This study converts a typical kind of LBSM data, geo-tagged tweets, into raster images at the 500 m spatial resolution and compares them with the new generation nighttime lights (NTL) image products, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band (DNB) monthly image composites. The results show that the monthly tweet images are significantly correlated with the VIIRS-DNB images at the pixel level. The tweet images have nearly the same ability on estimating electric power consumption and better performance on assessing personal incomes and population than the NTL images. Tweeted areas (i.e. the pixels with at least one posted tweet) are closer to satellite-derived built-up/urban areas than lit areas in NTL imagery, making tweet images an alternative to delimit extents of human activities. Moreover, the monthly tweet images do not show apparent seasonal changes, and the values of tweet images are more stable across different months than VIIRS-DNB monthly image composites. This study explores the potential of LBSM data at relatively fine spatiotemporal resolutions to estimate or map socioeconomic factors as an alternative to NTL images in the United States.     

Step-wise Land-class Elimination Approach for extracting mixed-type built-up areas of Kolkata megacity

The extraction of urban built-up areas is an important aspect of urban planning and understanding the complex drivers and biophysical mechanism of urban climate processes. However, built-up area extraction using Landsat data is a challenging task due to spatio-temporal dynamics and spatially intermixed nature of Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) in the cities of the developing countries, particularly in tropics. In the light of advantages and drawbacks of the Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI) and Built-up Area Extraction Method (BAEM), a new and simple method i.e. Step-wise Land-class Elimination Approach (SLEA) is proposed for rapid and accurate mapping of urban built-up areas without depending exclusively on the band specific normalized indices, in order to pursue a more generalized approach. It combines the use of a single band layer, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) image and another binary image obtained through Logit model. Based on the spectral designation of the satellite image in use, a particular band is chosen for identification of water pixels. The Double-window Flexible Pace Search (DFPS) approach is employed for finding the optimum threshold value that segments the selected band image into water and non-water categories. The water pixels are then eliminated from the original image. The vegetation pixels are similarly identified using the NDVI image and eliminated. The residual pixels left after elimination of water and vegetation categories belong either to the built-up areas or to bare land categories. Logit model is used for separation of the built-up areas from bare lands. The effectiveness of this method was tested through the mapping of built-up areas of the Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA), India from Thematic Mapper (TM) images of 2000, 2005 and 2010, and Operational Land Imager (OLI) image of 2015. Results of the proposed SLEA were 95.33% accurate on the whole, while those derived by the NDBI and BAEM approaches returned an overall accuracy of 83.67% and 89.33%, respectively. Comparisons of the results obtained using this method with those obtained from NDBI and BAEM approaches demonstrate that the proposed approach is quite reliable. The SLEA generates new patterns of evidence and hypotheses for built-up areas extraction research, providing an integral link with statistical science and encouraging trans-disciplinary collaborations to build robust knowledge and problem solving capacity in urban areas. It also brings landscape architecture, urban and regional planning, landscape and ecological engineering, and other practice-oriented fields to bear together in processes for identifying problems and analyzing, synthesizng, and evaluating desirable alternatives for urban change. This method produced very accurate results in a more efficient manner compared to the earlier built-up area extraction approaches for the landscape and urban planning.     

Analysis of urban built-up areas and surface urban heat island using downscaled MODIS derived land surface temperature data

Regional scale urban built-up areas and surface urban heat islands (SUHI) are important for urban planning and policy formation. Owing to coarse spatial resolution (1000 m), it is difficult to use Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Land surface temperature (LST) products for mapping urban areas and visualization, and SUHI-related studies. To overcome this problem, the present study downscaled MODIS (1000 m resolution)-derived LST to 250 m resolution to map and visualize the urban areas and identify the basic components of SUHI over 12 districts of Punjab, India. The results are compared through visual interpretation and statistical procedure based on similarity analysis. The increased entropy value in the downscaled LST signifies higher information content. The temperature variation within the built-up and its environs is due to difference in land use and is depicted better in the downscaled LST. The SUHI intensity analysis of four cities (Ludhiana, Patiala, Moga and Vatinda) indicates that mean temperature in urban built-up core is higher (38.87 °C) as compared to suburban (35.85 °C) and rural (32.41 °C) areas. The downscaling techniques demonstrated in this paper enhance the usage of open-source wide swath MODIS LST for continuous monitoring of SUHI and urban area mapping, visualisation and analysis at regional scale. Such initiatives are useful for the scientific community and the decision-makers.     

基于DMSP-OLS和珞珈一号夜光遥感影像的粤港澳大湾区城市空间格局演变

夜光遥感影像数据可有效反映城市空间格局变化。本文基于1992—2012年的DSMP-OLS夜光遥感影像和2018年的珞珈一号遥感影像,利用分层阈值法提取粤港澳大湾区内各城市建成区;通过计算平均灯光强度、平均灯光增长速率、城市建成区面积、城市建成区增长速率、城市重心、城市重心偏移距离等一系列指数,揭示区内各城市的空间格局演变过程。研究结果表明:①1992—2018年,粤港澳大湾区的城市规模大幅增长,沿珠江口两侧形成了以澳门、广州、深圳和香港为核心的倒“U”形城市群,并呈辐射状向周边扩张。②以珠江口为界,粤港澳大湾区东部各个城市的发展水平整体高于西部各个城市,广州、深圳、香港等核心城市发展水平明显高于江门、肇庆、惠州等外围城市。③1992—2018年,粤港澳大湾区建成区的增长速率由小变大,最后逐渐趋于稳定,2002—2007年是城市扩张最迅猛时期。④1992—2018年,粤港澳大湾区的各城市重心迁移方式表现为3种类型:持续向区域中心迁移;持续向相邻城市邻接区迁移;持续向海洋方向迁移。大部分城市的重心迁移方向呈“震荡”特征。     

一种基于车辆轨迹数据的城市建成区边界识别方法

城市建成区边界是城市土地资源管理和城市扩张管理的重要依据。本文提出了基于出租车轨迹数据,利用多分辨率下规则格网对比分析法及Densi-Graph阈值确定法,来自动提取城市建成区边界的方法。试验采用北京市2008年出租车GPS轨迹点数据,依据该方法模型计算提取城市建成区并进行结果准确度评价,将提取结果与北京市2008年土地覆盖空间分布图进行比对,所提取建成区边界范围与城镇、建设用地区域范围基本相符;将提取结果与中国城市统计年鉴数据进行比对,该年鉴中给定2008年北京市建成区总面积为1 310.94 km^2,本文方法提取建成区总面积约为1 077.33 km^2,提取准确度约为82.18%,表明本文方法可以获得准确的建成区范围。     

Quantifying uncertainty in remote sensing-based urban land-use mapping

Land-use/land-cover information constitutes an important component in the calibration of many urban growth models. Typically, the model building involves a process of historic calibration based on time series of land-use maps. Medium-resolution satellite imagery is an interesting source for obtaining data on land-use change, yet inferring information on the use of urbanised spaces from these images is a challenging task that is subject to different types of uncertainty. Quantifying and reducing the uncertainties in land-use mapping and land-use change model parameter assessment are therefore crucial to improve the reliability of urban growth models relying on these data. In this paper, a remote sensing-based land-use mapping approach is adopted, consisting of two stages: (i) estimating impervious surface cover at sub-pixel level through linear regression unmixing and (ii) inferring urban land use from urban form using metrics describing the spatial structure of the built-up area, together with address data. The focus lies on quantifying the uncertainty involved in this approach. Both stages of the land-use mapping process are subjected to Monte Carlo simulation to assess their relative contribution to and their combined impact on the uncertainty in the derived land-use maps. The robustness to uncertainty of the land-use mapping strategy is addressed by comparing the most likely land-use maps obtained from the simulation with the original land-use map, obtained without taking uncertainty into account. The approach was applied on the Brussels-Capital Region and the central part of the Flanders region (Belgium), covering the city of Antwerp, using a time series of SPOT data for 1996, 2005 and 2012. Although the most likely land-use map obtained from the simulation is very similar to the original land-use map – indicating absence of bias in the mapping process – it is shown that the errors related to the impervious surface sub-pixel fraction estimation have a strong impact on the land-use map's uncertainty. Hence, uncertainties observed in the derived land-use maps should be taken into account when using these maps as an input for modelling of urban growth.     

Monitoring urbanization dynamics in India using DMSP/OLS night time lights and SPOT-VGT data

India is a rapidly urbanizing country and has experienced profound changes in the spatial structure of urban areas. This study endeavours to illuminate the process of urbanization in India using Defence Meteorological Satellites Program – Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) night time lights (NTLs) and SPOT vegetation (VGT) dataset for the period 1998–2008. Satellite imagery of NTLs provides an efficient way to map urban areas at global and national scales. DMSP/OLS dataset however lacks continuity and comparability; hence the dataset was first intercalibrated using second order polynomial regression equation. The intercalibrated dataset along with SPOT-VGT dataset for the year 1998 and 2008 were subjected to a support vector machine (SVM) method to extract urban areas. SVM is semi-automated technique that overcomes the problems associated with the thresholding methods for NTLs data and hence enables for regional and national scale assessment of urbanization. The extracted urban areas were validated with Google Earth images and global urban extent maps. Spatial metrics were calculated and analyzed state-wise to understand the dynamism of urban areas in India. Significant changes in urban proportion were observed in Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Kerala while other states also showed a high degree of changes in area wise urban proportion.     

珞珈一号夜间灯光影像在建设用地提取中的应用:以武汉市为例

城市建设用地能够反映城市建设发展在地域空间上的分布形态,是规划主管部门监测城市建设和扩张的关键指标.2018-06-02发射的珞珈一号卫星可提供130 m分辨率的夜间灯光数据,在城市建设用地的提取方面具有较大潜力.首先整合珞珈一号夜间灯光影像与Landsat 8多光谱影像以及网络地图兴趣点数据;然后分别采用人类居住合成...     

The Generalised Settlement Area: mapping the Earth surface in the vicinity of built-up areas

ABSTRACT

Geo-information on settlements from Earth Observation offers a base for objective and scalable monitoring of the evolution of cities and settlements, including their location, extent and other attributes. In this work, we deploy the best available global knowledge on the presence of human settlements and built-up structures derived from Earth Observation to advance the understanding of the human presence on Earth. We start from a concept of Generalised Settlement Area to identify the Earth surface within which any built-up structure is present. We further characterise the resulted map by using an agreement map among the state of the art of remote sensing products mapping built-up areas or other strictly related semantic abstractions as urban areas or artificial surfaces. The agreement map is formed by a grid of 1?km², where each cell is classified according to the number of EO-derived products reporting any positive occurrence of the abstractions related to the presence of built-up structures. The paper describes the characteristics of the Generalised Settlement Area, the differences in the agreement map across geographic regions of the world, and outlines the implications for potential users of the EO-derived products used in this study.     

城市道路的多特征多核SVM提取方法

针对高分辨率遥感影像中城市道路提取的复杂性及SVM的分类性能,提出了一种城市道路的多特征多核SVM提取方法。首先利用FCM算法将原始影像粗分为建成区和非建成区两类,剔除非建成区;然后根据分水岭分割算法分割建成区并提取分割对象的光谱特征与空间特征,以全局核函数和局部核函数加权组合的方式构建多核SVM对建成区进行二次分类,去除建成区中的建筑物等非道路信息;最后利用数学形态学处理,获得最终的道路提取结果。试验结果表明：文中所提方法能够较精确地提取城市道路信息,分类精度高于单核SVM提取及其他对比方法。     

Urban cadastral mapping using very high resolution remote sensing data

With growing urban expanses, one of the pre-requisites for effective governance is Urban Information Systems (UIS) with content down to individual properties (and individuals). The basic input i.e., a map, in UIS should show individual property boundaries showing the plan outline of all structures existing within, at a scale of 1:1000 and larger with sub-metre to centimeters planimetric and geometric accuracy. With very high resolution remote sensing data of the order of 1m available in hand, it is possible to prepare maps with high resolution spatial content. The present exercise demonstrates a method of preparing a geometrically and planimetrically accurate urban cadastral map on very large scale for a small area of about 5 sq km. IKONOS merged data with 1m resolution is used for the purpose. Mapping was done in conjunction with on-site measurements and sketches. Guides are used to maintain shape symmetry and accuracy of buildings and other features. Working out cost of mapping per unit area is another objective in the present exercise. For want of fully or semi-automatic methods of information extraction from very high resolution remote sensing data, it is imperative that mapping should be carried out in conjunction with some on-site measurements wherever necessary.     

夜间灯光数据支持下的广州市人口空间化

了解区域人口的空间分布,能够为城市精细化管理和城市规划提供有力的支撑数据,对提高城市发展水平有重要的现实意义。为此,本文以“珞珈一号”(LJ-1 01)夜间灯光(NTL)影像为基础数据,以广州市为研究区,结合人口估算模型等方法,开展基于NTL数据的人口空间化研究。结果表明:LJ-1 01 NTL数据能够有效地应用于人口空间化研究。人口空间化后,广州市人口分布具有显著的“一主中心,多核心”的特征,各区域内部的人口分布差异可被清晰地展示与区分。本文结果对城市规划与城市管理具有一定价值的辅助支撑作用。     

Observations of urban and suburban environments with global satellite scatterometer data

A global and consistent characterization of land use and land change in urban and suburban environments is crucial for many fundamental social and natural science studies and applications. Presented here is a dense sampling method (DSM) that uses satellite scatterometer data to delineate urban and intraurban areas at a posting scale of about 1 km. DSM results are analyzed together with information on population and housing censuses, with Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) imagery, and with Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) night-light data. The analyses include Dallas-Fort Worth and Phoenix in the United States, Bogotá in Colombia, Dhaka in Bangladesh, Guangzhou in China, and Quito in Ecuador. Results show that scatterometer signatures correspond to buildings and infrastructures in urban and suburban environments. City extents detected by scatterometer data are significantly smaller than city light extents, but not all urban areas are detectable by the current SeaWinds scatterometer on the QuikSCAT satellite. Core commercial and industrial areas with high buildings and large factories are identified as high-backscatter centers. Data from DSM backscatter and DMSP nighttime lights have a good correlation with population density. However, the correlation relations from the two satellite datasets are different for different cities indicating that they contain complementary information. Together with night-light and census data, DSM and satellite scatterometer data provide new observations to study global urban and suburban environments and their changes. Furthermore, the capability of DSM to identify hydrological channels on the Greenland ice sheet and ecological biomes in central Africa demonstrates that DSM can be used to observe persistent structures in natural environments at a km scale, providing contemporaneous data to study human impacts beyond urban and suburban areas.     

Built-up and vegetation extraction and density mapping using WorldView-II

This study demonstrates the use of high resolution WorldView-II satellite data in extraction of built-up land and vegetation using normalized index techniques. The PCA 1 and NIR 2 bands-based built-up index was proposed for extracting built-up land, which exhibit high accuracy. The normalized difference vegetation index based on Red Edge and NIR 2 bands of WorldView-II produced high accuracy inthe estimation of vegetation compared to the use of Red and NIR bands. The grid technique used in estimating built-up and vegetation density from precisely classified images provided better and accurate assessment of built-up and vegetation density in heterogeneous landscape of urban areas. This shows areas of very high to high built-up density are located in the central, western and southern parts, which are primarily devoid of vegetation. This study indicates possibilities of utilizing high resolution satellite data in urban landscape characterization using a grid-based technique.     

A new spectral index for the extraction of built-up land features from Landsat 8 satellite imagery

Abstract

Extracting built-up areas from remote sensing data like Landsat 8 satellite is a challenge. We have investigated it by proposing a new index referred as built-up land features extraction index (BLFEI). The BLFEI index takes advantage of its simplicity and good separability between the four major component of urban system, namely built-up, barren, vegetation and water. The histogram overlap method and the spectral discrimination index (SDI) are used to study separability. BLFEI index uses the two bands of infrared shortwaves, the red and green bands of the visible spectrum. OLI imagery of Algiers, Algeria, was used to extract built-up areas through BLFEI and some new previously developed built-up indices used for comparison. The water areas are masked out leading to Otsu’s thresholding algorithm to automatically find the optimal value for extracting built-up land from waterless regions. BLFEI, the new index improved the separability by 25% and the accuracy by 5%.     

遥感影像与POI数据相结合的城市建成区提取适用性研究——以沈阳市为例

城市建成区的发展状况是地理国情监测的重要内容,本文基于遥感影像数据和POI数据对城市建成区进行提取,针对二者的适用性问题进行了研究。试验以沈阳市为研究区域,在研究区域内选择2016年遥感影像数据和POI数据作为数据源进行对比分析。首先,对遥感影像数据和POI数据进行预处理;其次,通过监督分类的方法对遥感影像进行建成区的提取;然后,采用核密度估计法分析POI数据并提取出建成区;最后,利用叠加分析法对比分析这两种数据的适用性。试验结果表明：使用遥感影像数据作为数据源可以较为全面客观地反映城市建成区的发展现状;利用POI数据提取出的城市建成区具有较强的经济属性,能够很好地反映出城市中的经济活跃区。     

Spatio-temporal analysis of urban growth in selected small,medium and large Indian cities

This study attempts to ascertain the spatial and temporal variations in the evolution of Indian cities using multi-date remote sensing data. A two-stage object-based nearest neighbour classification approach with hierarchical segmentation was used to extract built-up area in selected small, medium and large cities, whereas object-based temporal inversion was applied for change analysis. The temporal trend of net population density, degree of scattered development and compactness of urban core in each city was determined using the built-up area. The study observed a declining trend in growth rate of built-up area in small and medium sized-cities, in contrast to large cities. However, the net population density in cities of all types is decreasing as urban growth has outpaced the corresponding population growth. Furthermore, small and medium cities indicated greater tendency for scattered development in comparison to large cities, whereas the core urban areas of the later appeared relatively less compact.     

全极化SAR数据反演桥面高度

根据高分辨率SAR图像上建筑区的影像特征, 提出了基于灰度共生矩阵(gray-level cooccurrence Matrix, GLCM)纹理分析的建筑区提取方法, 该方法由初步定位和边界调整2个步骤组成, 均遵循特征计算、基于Bhattacharyya距离的特征选择和KNN分类流程, 所不同的是2个步骤中分别采用了逐块和逐点计算纹理特征的方式以兼顾纹理分析的效率和准确性。文中对不同SAR传感器获取的图像进行了实验。实验结果表明, 选用具有最大Bhattacharyya距离值的3或4个特征可以获得较好的初步定位结果, 建筑区的检测率超过80%, 虚警率低于10%;随着边界调整的进行, 检测到的建筑区边界逐渐接近于真实边界。实验结果验证了该算法的有效性。