Use of multi-temporal and multispectral satellite data for urban change detection analysis

Urban land cover/use types and their areal distributions are fundamental data required for a wide range of studies in the physical and social sciences, as well as by municipalities for land planning purposes. Remote sensing is a key application in global-change science, being very useful for urban climatology and landuse-landcover dynamics analysis. Investigation of radiation properties, energy balance and heat fluxes is based on satellite data from various satellite sensors and in-situ monitoring data, linked to numerical models and quantitative biophysical information extracted from spatially distributed NDVI-data and net radiation. Spectral signatures of different terrain features are used to separate surface units and to classify them into general categories. Have been analysed multi-spectral and multi-temporal digital imagery data (LANDSAT TM, ETM; SAR, MODIS) for Bucharest metropolitan area over 1989 – 2004 period. It provides the most reliable technique of different urban structures monitoring of net radiation and heat fluxes associated with urbanization at the regional scale. The changes over the years of surface biophysical parameters are examined in association with landuse changes to illustrate how these parameters respond to rapid urban expansion. The land cover information provide a spatially-temporally view of urban environment, being an important complement to in-situ measurements.