Remotely Sensed Cities

New urban applications are emerging for remote sensing, in particular with the use of high-resolution data for measuring, monitoring and analysis. This comes through the use of high spatial resolution imaging, such as for precision mapping of cities; new techniques for population mapping; extracting urban land use features, and evaluating the city energy patterns; and through the use of night-time imagery for determining populations and economic activity, particularly on a global scale.

Remotely Sensed Cities helps to redress the balance with remote sensing books, most of which are dedicated to the physical environment. It is designed for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, along with research scientists and brings together a good deal of topical work applying remote sensing to the understanding of urban features, their behavior and growth.

Victor Mesev is Lecturer of Geography at the University of Ulster where he teaches on Ireland's first Master's course on GIS and remote sensing. Previously, he spent seven years at the University of Bristol conducting ESRC and NERC funded research into the integration of GIS and remote sensing, and developments in urban fractal models. He is on the editorial board of 'Computers, Environment and Urban Systems'.