Integrating remote sensing and geospatial big data for urban land use mapping: a review

Remote Sensing (RS) has been used in urban mapping for a long time; however, the complexity and diversity of urban functional patterns are difficult to be captured by RS only. Emerging Geospatial Big Data (GBD) are considered as the supplement to RS data, and help to contribute to our understanding of urban lands from physical aspects (i.e., urban land cover) to socioeconomic aspects (i.e., urban land use). Integrating RS and GBD could be an effective way to combine physical and socioeconomic aspects with great potential for high-quality urban land use classification. In this study, we reviewed the existing literature and focused on the state-of-the-art and perspective of the urban land use categorization by integrating RS and GBD. Specifically, the commonly used RS features (e.g., spectral, textural, temporal, and spatial features) and GBD features (e.g., spatial, temporal, semantic, and sequence features) were identified and analyzed in urban land use classification. The integration strategies for RS and GBD features were categorized into feature-level integration (FI) and decision-level integration (DI). To be more specific, the FI method integrates the RS and GBD features and classifies urban land use types using the integrated feature sets; the DI method processes RS and GBD independently and then merges the classification results based on decision rules. We also discussed other critical issues, including analysis unit setting, parcel segmentation, parcel labeling of land use types, and data integration. Our findings provide a retrospect of different features from RS and GBD, strategies of RS and GBD integration, and their pros and cons, which could help to define the framework for future urban land use mapping and better support urban planning, urban environment assessment, urban disaster monitoring and urban traffic analysis

Urban Land Use Mapping by Combining Remote Sensing Imagery and Mobile Phone Positioning Data

Land use is of great importance for urban planning, environmental monitoring, and transportation management. Several methods have been proposed to obtain land use maps of urban areas, and these can be classified into two categories: remote sensing methods and social sensing methods. However, remote sensing and social sensing approaches have specific disadvantages regarding the description of social and physical features, respectively. Therefore, an appropriate fusion strategy is vital for large-area land use mapping. To address this issue, we propose an efficient land use mapping method that combines remote sensing imagery (RSI) and mobile phone positioning data (MPPD) for large areas. We implemented this method in two steps. First, a support vector machine was adopted to classify the RSI and MPPD. Then, the two classification results were fused using a decision fusion strategy to generate the land use map. The proposed method was applied to a case study of the central area of Beijing. The experimental results show that the proposed method improved classification accuracy compared with that achieved using MPPD alone, validating the efficacy of this new approach for identifying land use. Based on the land use map and MPPD data, activity density in key zones during daytime and nighttime was analyzed to illustrate the volume and variation of people working and living across different regions

Geoscience-aware deep learning:A new paradigm for remote sensing

Information extraction is a key activity for remote sensing images. A common distinction exists between knowledge-driven and data-driven methods. Knowledge-driven methods have advanced reasoning ability and interpretability, but have difficulty in handling complicated tasks since prior knowledge is usually limited when facing the highly complex spatial patterns and geoscience phenomena found in reality. Data-driven models, especially those emerging in machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL), have achieved substantial progress in geoscience and remote sensing applications. Although DL models have powerful feature learning and representation capabilities, traditional DL has inherent problems including working as a black box and generally requiring a large number of labeled training data. The focus of this paper is on methods that integrate domain knowledge, such as geoscience knowledge and geoscience features (GK/GFs), into the design of DL models. The paper introduces the new paradigm of geoscience-aware deep learning (GADL), in which GK/GFs and DL models are combined deeply to extract information from remote sensing data. It first provides a comprehensive summary of GK/GFs used in GADL, which forms the basis for subsequent integration of GK/GFs with DL models. This is followed by a taxonomy of approaches for integrating GK/GFs with DL models. Several approaches are detailed using illustrative examples. Challenges and research prospects in GADL are then discussed. Developing more novel and advanced methods in GADL is expected to become the prevailing trend in advancing remotely sensed information extraction in the future.</p

Digital Earth: The Impact of Geographic Technology Through the Ages

Geographic technology encompasses a wide range of geographic knowledge, concepts, processes, and artifacts. Because of its interdisciplinarity and integration with other technologies, the paper examines the diffuse impacts of geographic technology within the evolving relationship between technological and societal developments over time

USING SOCIALLY SENSED BIG DATA TO MODEL PATTERNS AND GEOGRAPHIC CONTEXT OF HUMAN ACTIVITIES IN CITIES

Understanding dynamic interactions between human activities and land-use structure in a city is a key lens to explore the city as a complex system. This dissertation contributes to understanding the complexity of urban dynamics by gaining knowledge of the interactions between human activities and city land-use structures by utilizing free-accessible socially sensed data sources, and building upon recent research trend and technologies in geographical information science, urban study, and computer science. This dissertation addresses three main questions related to human dynamics: 1) how human activities in an urban environment are shaped by socioeconomic status and the intra-city land-use structure, and how in turn, the knowledge of socioeconomic status-activity relationships can contribute to understanding the social landscape of a city; 2) how different types of activities are located in space and time in three U.S. cities and how the spatiotemporal activity patterns in these cities characterize the activity profile of different neighborhoods in the cities; and 3) how recent socially sensed information on human activities can be integrated with widely-used remotely sensed geographical data to create a novel approach for discovering patterns of land use in cities that are otherwise lacking in up to date land use information. This dissertation models the associations between socioeconomics and mobility in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area as a case study and applies the learned associations for inferring geographical patterns of socioeconomic status (SES) solely using the socially sensed data. This dissertation also implements a semi-automated workflow to retrieve activity details from socially sensed Twitter data in Washington, D.C., the City of Baltimore, and New York City. The dissertation integrates remotely-sensed imagery and socially sensed data to model the dynamics associated with changing land-use types in the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore metropolitan area over time

Advances for Urban Planning in Highly Dynamic Environments through very High-Resolution Remote Sensing Approaches

Die fortschreitende Urbanisierung und der Klimawandel stellen Städte und Stadtplanung vor große Herausforderungen. Der Lebensraum für die Bewohner und die Infrastruktur müssen entsprechend den Klimaschutzanforderungen angepasst werden, zudem muss die Resilienz urbaner Räume gegenüber Klimawandelwandelfolgen erhöht werden. Ziel der urbanen Planung und urbanen Infrastrukturplanung ist vor diesem Hintergrund im Auftrag der Gesellschaft Lösungen zu finden, um diesen Anforderungen der Zukunft gerecht zu werden und um lebenswerte Städte mit allen städtischen Funktionen zu gewährleisten. Zudem müssen durch Planer ökonomische und ökologisch geeignete Vorschläge für die Bereitstellung urbaner Infrastruktur gefunden werden, um Grundbedürfnisse zu erfüllen und Slums zurückzudrängen. Gute Planungspraxis erfordert dafür die Entwicklung von Planungsszenarien für angemessene, erfolgreiche und integrierte Lösungen, wobei eine Datenbasis als Entscheidungsgrundlage dienen muss, die durch Datenkonsistenz, -Qualität und -Aktualität als Evidenz für Szenarienentwicklung herangezogen werden kann. In dieser Dissertationsschrift wird durch drei Studien gezeigt, dass die Disziplin der Fernerkundung durch die Verwendung sehr hochaufgelöster Erdbeobachtungsdaten einen Beitrag für erfolgreiche urbane Planung und urbane Infrastrukturplanung leisten kann, indem der Informationsgehalt bisheriger Fernerkundungsansätze unter Verwendung anwendungsfreundlicher Ansätze erhöht werden kann und direkt planungsrelevante Informationen als Evidenz für die Entscheidungsfindung bereitgestellt werden kann. In den hochdynamischen Städten Da Nang (VN) und Belmopan (BZ) konnte an dieser Thematik gearbeitet werden. Durch die Differenzierung photogrammetrisch abgeleiteter Höhenmodelle in sehr hoher Auflösung wurden in Da Nang anstatt flächenhafter Änderungen urbaner Gebiete Dynamiken innerhalb des Gebäudebestands bestimmt und evaluiert. Der Gebäudetyp kann, wie in Belmopan gezeigt, als geeignetes Mittel für Abschätzung sozio-ökonomischer Indikatoren dienen, die in Zusammenhang mit spezifischen Verbräuchen stehen. Mit der Verwendung von Drohnendaten wurde die Bestimmung der Gebäudetypen verbessert und zudem der Zusammenhang zwischen Gebäudetyp und Stromverbrauch gezeigt, wodurch eine Photovoltaikenergie-Bilanzierung auf Einzelgebäudeebene durchgeführt werden konnte

Evaluating the Impact of Nature-Based Solutions: Appendix of Methods

The Handbook aims to provide decision-makers with a comprehensive NBS impact assessment framework, and a robust set of indicators and methodologies to assess impacts of nature-based solutions across 12 societal challenge areas: Climate Resilience; Water Management; Natural and Climate Hazards; Green Space Management; Biodiversity; Air Quality; Place Regeneration; Knowledge and Social Capacity Building for Sustainable Urban Transformation; Participatory Planning and Governance; Social Justice and Social Cohesion; Health and Well-being; New Economic Opportunities and Green Jobs. Indicators have been developed collaboratively by representatives of 17 individual EU-funded NBS projects and collaborating institutions such as the EEA and JRC, as part of the European Taskforce for NBS Impact Assessment, with the four-fold objective of: serving as a reference for relevant EU policies and activities; orient urban practitioners in developing robust impact evaluation frameworks for nature-based solutions at different scales; expand upon the pioneering work of the EKLIPSE framework by providing a comprehensive set of indicators and methodologies; and build the European evidence base regarding NBS impacts. They reflect the state of the art in current scientific research on impacts of nature-based solutions and valid and standardized methods of assessment, as well as the state of play in urban implementation of evaluation frameworks