Abstract
Based on the continuation of our past study, the present analysis is conducted to examine recent effects of the urbanization process occurring over the entire district of Rome. Overlays of ALOS AVNIR-2 and SENTINEL-2A satellite images, collected over a 6 years period, were validated via Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques, in a particular procedure applied to urban land and agricultural transformations. The use of Copernicus SENTINEL-2A imagery has improved the previous results on urban processes, by reducing the uncertainty of the discrimination of land cover classes and facilitating the photo-interpretation. Statistical analysis was performed via the Urban Area Profile index in order to quantify the sprawl phenomenon, by defining several landscape metrics. This work, to be enriched in the future by means of complementary information available from Copernicus radar sensors, like the one onboard Sentinel-1, completes the series of observations on land use published by the Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, which stopped back in 2008.
Highlights
Nowadays continuous remote sensing monitoring of urban areas is required all over the world in order to a) keep track of the loss of natural zones due to urban development and b) support urban planning activities [1]
By comparing the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) AVNIR-2 and SENTINEL-2A UAP Indexes (Table 5 and Figure 5), it is possible to observe lower density values in 2016 than in 2010: this may be considered as an indication of the constant increase of the urban sprawl phenomenon, which seems to suggest a form of compacting and welding of the urban territory within the 6 years’ time difference between acquisitions
Land use and land cover mapping have been core applications of Earth Observation from its inception to today, and so data spanning over several decades is available
Summary
Nowadays continuous remote sensing monitoring of urban areas is required all over the world in order to a) keep track of the loss of natural zones due to urban development and b) support urban planning activities [1]. In the last decades remarkable urban sprawl took place in Rome [3], especially along the consular roads, which are still the principal infrastructures available for transportation, causing significant environmental impacts, whereby natural surfaces were replaced by buildings, with the consequence of disappearance of vegetated areas, increased soil sealing and atmospheric pollution [4]. The road network constitutes the key geographic object spatially structuring the urban growth of Rome and represents a good target for any aerial and multi-temporal satellite view. The overall objective of this paper, based on the continuation of our past study [5] [6] and [7], was to demonstrate the utility of the application of innovative GIS urban area profile indicators, derived from multi-temporal and multi-source optical remote sensing imagery, for assessing both the spatiotemporal dynamics and the extent of urban sprawl phenomenon over the entire municipality of Rome. The European Earth Observation satellite SENTINEL-2A, successfully launched on June 2015, thanks to the innovative wide swath highresolution Multispectral Imager (MSI), permitted for an unprecedented view and enhanced classification of the urban landscape [8]
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