The use of remote sensors for human settlement mapping and monitoring holds great promise for numerous fields of study, including urban planning and global environmental change and sustainability. While the potential for this technology is difficult to measure, achieving useful results at a regional or global level is but a recent accomplishment. G

This publication reviews recent urban planning practices and approaches, discusses constraints and conflicts therein, and identifies innovative approaches that are more responsive to current challenges of urbanization. It notes that traditional approaches to urban planning (particularly in developing countries) have largely failed to promote equitable, efficient and sustainable human settlements and to address twenty-first century challenges, including rapid urbanization, shrinking cities and aging, climate change and related disasters, urban sprawl and unplanned peri-urbanization, as well as urbanization of poverty and informality. It concludes that new approaches to planning can only be meaningful, and have a greater chance of succeeding, if they effectively address all of these challenges, are participatory and inclusive, as well as linked to contextual socio-political processes.--Publisher's description

Remote sensing of impervious surfaces has matured using advances in geospatial technology so recent that its applications have received only sporadic coverage in remote sensing literature. Remote Sensing of Impervious Surfaces is the first to focus entirely on this developing field. It provides detailed coverage of mapping, data extraction,

Cities and towns are the original producers of many of the global environmental problems related to waste disposal, and air and water pollution. There is a rapidly growing need for technologies that will enable monitoring of the world's natural resources and urban assets, and managing exposure to natural and man-made risks. The Group on Earth Obser

The relationship between citizens and city governments is gradually transforming due to the utilization of advanced information and communication technologies in order to inform, consult, and engage citizens. Citizen E-Participation in Urban Governance: Crowdsourcing and Collaborative Creativity explores the nature of the new challenges confronting citizens and local governments in the field of urban governance. This comprehensive reference source explores the role that Web 2.0 technologies play in promoting citizen participation and empowerment in the city government and is intended for scholars, researchers, students, and practitioners in the field of urban studies, urban planning, political science, public administration, and more.

The challenge of housing is increasingly recognised in international policy discussions in connection to the processes of migration, climate change, and economic globalisation. This book addresses the challenges of housing and emerging solutions along the lines of three major dynamics: migration, climate change, and neo-liberalism. It explores the outcomes of neo-liberal »enabling« ideas, responses to extreme climate events with different housing approaches, and how the dynamics of migration reshape the urban housing provision in a changing world. The aim is to contextualise the theoretical discourses by reflecting on the case study context of the eleven papers published in this book. With forewords by Raquel Rolnik (University Sao Paulo) and Mohammed El Sioufi (UN-Habitat).

Urban Remote Sensing, Second Edition assembles a team of professional experts to provide a much-needed update on the applications of remote sensing technology to urban and suburban areas. This book reflects new developments in spaceborne and airborne sensors, image processing methods and techniques, and wider applications of urban remote sensing to meet societal and economic challenges. In various sections of the book the authors address methods for upscaling urban feature extraction to the global scale, new methods in mapping and detecting urban landscape features and structures, and mapping and monitoring urbanization in developing countries. Additionally, readers are provided with valuable case studies such as the HEAT (Heat Energy Assessment Technologies) project in Calgary, Canada and the use of VHR (very high resolution) satellite monitoring in Salzburg, Austria to tackle challenges of urban green planning. Features Explores the most up-to-date developments in the field of urban remote sensing Integrates both technical and practical aspects covering all different topics of global urban growth issues Provides new and updated contributions addressing data mining of remotely sensed big data, recent urban studies on a global scale, accuracy assessment and validation, and new technical challenges Examines various applications of urban remote sensing in support of urban planning, environmental management, and sustainable urban development Authors are renowned figures in the field of remote sensing