URBAN SUSTAINABLE ECOSYSTEMS ASSESSMENT THROUGH AIRBORNE EARTH OBSERVATION: LESSONS LEARNED

Abstract. Europe’s big cities and metropolitan areas constitute an ecosystem where climate trends are having, and will continue to have, a big impact on the population in the short, medium, and long term. Therefore, the task of generating a mapping approach over urban ecosystems to provide indicators assessing their sustainability and facilitating the design and implementation of policies and derived actions has become a priority for the Institut Cartogràfic i Geològic de Catalunya (ICGC) as a mapping agency.

The ICGC has been using its own assets and competences in airborne Earth Observation for data capture and processing as well as inclusion of additional data such as cadastral databases and digital surface models to generate a set of urban sustainability indicators. ICGC has designed flight campaigns at a very high spatial and spectral resolution in visible, near infrared and long wave infrared regions, processed geospatial data and finally transformed geoinformation into demanded ICGC products over urban ecosystems such as urban green, solar potential, light pollution, energy leaks or urban heat island effect. This approach has been applied in coordination with urban planning stakeholders in different cities and is planned to be extended to the majority of urban ecosystems in Catalonia.

This paper presents a critical summary of the main advantages, disadvantages, constrains and lessons learned in the search for feasible, available and desirable responses from the earth-observation airborne-sensor point of view to the main urban ecosystem challenges.