Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
2
Use of archival Landsat imagery to
monitor urban spatial growth
Xiaojun Yang
The Landsat program has provided the longest continuous observations of Earth's surface, and the freely available
Landsat image archive has been an invaluable resource for examining natural and anthropogenic changes in the
environment. This chapter discusses the utilities of satellite remote sensing for the observation and measurement of
urban spatial growth emphasizing upon the use of archival Landsat data. We begin our discussion with an overview
of the past, present and future of the Landsat program and its imaging sensors, which is tied with various
inventorying and mapping activities in the urban environment. Then, we present a case study focusing on a rapidly
suburbanizing American metropolis to demonstrate the usefulness of time-sequential Landsat imagery for
monitoring urban growth and landscape changes over nearly the past four decades. Lastly, based on this case study
and other literatures, we identify a generic workflow for urban growth monitoring and discuss several conceptual
and technical issues emerging when using archival satellite images acquired by different sensors and perhaps during
different seasons, which include image resolution and information contents, image pre-processing, and change
detection methods. We believe such discussions can help identify the outstanding issues that must be addressed in
order to implement an urban growth monitoring protocol effectively.
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