Applied remote sensing for urban planning, governance and sustainability

This key text is an evaluation of the potential of remote sensing of urban areas. It helps to close a gap between the research-focused results offered by the "urban remote sensing" community, and the application of these data and products by the governing bodies of cities and urban regions. The authors present data from six urban regions worldwide. They explain what the important questions are, and how data and scientific skills can help answer them. These case studies provide an eye-opening window onto the potential of remote sensing in specific situations. Using high spatial and spectral resolution image data, the authors offer solutions to problems that can be tackled using this data. While there is no end of interesting science questions that we can ask about cities, sometimes these questions don't match well with what the operational problems and concerns of a given city are. This book helps to marry the two together.