Remote sensing of urban areas

Abstract

The rapid development of world‐wide urbanization causes many problems, such as infrastructure planning, uncontrolled urban sprawl and a concentration of resources at the expense of the surrounding countryside. Hence, planners and resource managers need a reliable mechanism to assess the consequences of urbanization quickly and effectively. Today, remote sensing and GIS are the new technologies that can help to solve these problems with up‐to‐date spatial information. This paper examines remote sensing of urban areas from the point of view of developed and developing countries.