Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
20
Characterizing biodiversity in urban
areas using remote sensing
Marcus Hedblom and Ulla Mortberg
Fauna and flora, and their diversity in cities have long been a neglected research area; instead, more natural
environments or environments used for human production, such as forests or rural areas, have been prioritized.
However, there has been a recent major increase in studies of urban green areas and their importance for species
richness. The urbanization process has led to fragmentation of habitats, which has become one of the greatest
threats to biodiversity worldwide. Remote sensing is a cost-efficient data source covering large areas, capturing
information in a systematic manner and can provide data for spatiotemporal studies in urban environments.
However, few studies have examined biodiversity in urban ecosystems using satellite images. Here, we review
remote sensing techniques for the study of biodiversity in urban areas, different approaches for characterizing
biodiversity with remote sensing and the effects of urbanization on biodiversity; we also discuss applications of
remote sensing in planning and management, and past and future avenues for research. We conclude that urban
biodiversity studies are still far from exploiting the full potential of advances in data capture, data interpretation
and classification methods in combination with field studies for deriving ecologically meaningful information.
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