Remote Sensing Application and GIS-Integration for Monitoring Urban Development - FIESTA

Project Leader: Dr. Klaus Steinnocher

Today's cities are faced with increasing populations and, hence, demand for land. This has lead to major problems, such as overcrowding, enhanced pollution, land degradation, as well as inadequate and ageing infrastructure. Urban policy, planning and ecological monitoring are therefore fundamental tasks for governmental authorities at all levels. These tasks require systems for mapping, monitoring and managing urban areas. During the last decade, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have become a major tool for managing the large volumes of diverse data pertaining to the complex urban environment. However, due to the rapid changes that take place in urban areas, regular monitoring is essential to provide GIS with up-to-date information. Unfortunately, traditional survey methods are both time-consuming and cost-intensive and therefore basic data only updated infrequently, often at irregular intervals. Consequently, this proposal focuses on the use of digital, spaceborne Earth observation data in order to improve and ease this task.
Within the proposed project it will be examined to what extent satellite images may be used to determine changes in urban structure. Satellite sensors offer the advantage of providing digital data at reasonable costs, in regular intervals and in different spatial and spectral resolution. To make full use of these advantages a hybrid approach for monitoring in urban areas is suggested. This includes using images with a high spectral resolution to highlight those areas, where changes are most likely to have occurred and then use high spatial resolution images to examine these changes in detail. A user interface, which will be developed within this project, will allow easy access to different information layers necessary to verify the derived changes, as well as to immediately update existing land use data bases. Objective of the proposed project are the development of a work flow, that allows a less time consuming and cost effective updating of urban land use data bases by means of satellite images. MA-41, the mapping unit of the city administration of Vienna, who is responsible for mapping and updating digital land use data bases, will act as a customer in the project. They will define the requirements on the system to be developed, will provide the necessary data sets and will evaluate the results of the project.