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Urban Inequalities from Space

Earth Observation Applications in the Majority World

  • Book
  • © 2024

Overview

Editors:
  1. Monika Kuffer

    1. Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

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  2. Stefanos Georganos

    1. Geomatics, Department of Environmental and Life Sciences, Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Offers a comprehensive overview of EO applications in LMIC cities
  • Connects with multiple Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs)
  • Describes EO in a data scarce environment

Part of the book series: Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing (RDIP, volume 26)

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About this book

Rapid transformation processes occur in the Majority World, where most of the global population is living (estimated around ¾ of the global population), often deprived of access to infrastructure, services, exposed to hazards and degrading environmental conditions. The continuous urbanization in many African, Asian and Latin American cities is coupled with rapid socio-economic and demographic changes in urban, peri-urban, and rural areas. These changes often increase socio-economic fragmentation and existing disparities. According to the United Nations, of the 36 fastest growing cities (with an average annual growth rate of more than 6%), seven are located in Africa, while 28 are found in Asia. On top of the socio-economic transformations, the increasing impact of climate change is expected to increase local vulnerabilities. However, data to understand these transformation processes and relationships are either unavailable, scarce or come with high degrees of uncertainty. Earth Observation information and methods have a great potential to fill data gaps, but they are not exploited to their full potential. Most urban remote sensing studies in the Majority World focus on the primary cities, while not much is known about secondary cities, urbanizing zones or peri-urban areas. Attempting to measure and map environmental and socio-economic phenomena through remote sensing is fundamentally different from extracting bio-physical parameters. In general, studies done by researchers of the Minority World do not sufficiently understand the information needs and capacity demands of the Majority World, especially related to user requirements and ethical perspectives. In this book, we aim to provide an outlook on how Remote Sensing can provide tailored solutions to information needs in urban and urbanizing areas of the Majority World, e.g., in terms socio-economic, environmental and demographic transformation processes. We will provide methodological and application pathways insupport of local and national information needs as well as in support of sustainable development, and specifically, supporting the monitoring of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The book combines an overview of innovations in applications, methodologies and data use, showing the capacity of Earth Observation to fill global knowledge gaps.

Keywords

Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Stefanos Georganos, Monika Kuffer
    Pages 1-9

  3. Global Analysis of Geospatial Datasets with a Focus on the Majority World

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 11-11
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    2. Integration of Remote and Social Sensing Data Reveals Uneven Quality of Broadband Connectivity Across World Cities

      • Michele Melchiorri, Patrizia Sulis, Paola Proietti, Marcello Schiavina, Alice Siragusa
      Pages 13-31Open Access

    3. Detecting Inequalities from Earth Observation–Derived Global Societal Variables

      • Daniele Ehrlich, Martino Pesaresi, Thomas Kemper, Marcello Schiavina, Sergio Freire, Michele Melchiorri
      Pages 33-53Open Access

    4. The State of the Streets: Measurements of Connectivity in the Atlas of Urban Expansion

      • Patrick Lamson-Hall, Shlomo Angel
      Pages 55-76

    5. Urban and Peri-Urban? Investigation of the Location of Informal Settlements Using Two Databases

      • Jota Samper, Monika Kuffer, Anthony Boanada-Fuchs
      Pages 77-98

  4. Measuring and Characterizing Urban Deprivation at Fine Scales

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 99-99
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    2. Integration of Datasets Toward Slum Identification: Local Implementation of the IDEAMAPS Framework

      • Irving Gibran Cabrera Zamora, Olivia Jimena Juárez Carrillo, Andrea Ramírez Santiago, Alejandra Figueroa Martínez, Elio Atenógenes Villaseñor García, Abel Alejandro Coronado Iruegas et al.
      Pages 101-118

    3. Putting the Invisible on the Map: Low-Cost Earth Observation for Mapping and Characterizing Deprived Urban Areas (Slums)

      • Sabine Vanhuysse, Monika Kuffer, Stefanos Georganos, Jiong Wang, Angela Abascal, Taïs Grippa et al.
      Pages 119-137

    4. The Impact of Respondents’ Background Towards Slum Conceptualisations and Transferability Measurement of Remote Sensing–Based Slum Detections. Case Study: Jakarta, Indonesia

      • Jati Pratomo, Karin Pfeffer, Monika Kuffer
      Pages 139-166

    5. Detection of Unmonitored Graveyards in VHR Satellite Data Using Fully Convolutional Networks

      • Henri Debray, Monika Kuffer, Christien Klaufus, Claudio Persello, Michael Wurm, Hannes Taubenböck et al.
      Pages 167-188

  5. Multitemporal Earth Observation Applications in the Majority World

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 189-189
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    2. Reconstructing 36 Years of Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Slums in Brazil by Integrating EO and Census Data

      • Julio Cesar Pedrassoli, Joice Genaro Gomes, Breno Malheiros de Melo, Edmilson Rodrigues dos Santos Junior, Eduardo Felix Justiniano, Fernando Shinji Kawakubo et al.
      Pages 191-215

    3. Assessing the Impact of Addis Ababa’s Successive Urban Policies on Farmland Loss, Food Insecurity and Economic Inequalities Using Earth Observation Data (1986–2022) (Yilak Kebede and Andreas Rienow)

      • Yilak Kebede, Andreas Rienow
      Pages 217-240

  6. Socio-economic and Demographic Mapping and Ecosystem Services

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 241-241
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    2. A Mixed Method Approach to Estimate Intra-urban Distribution of GDP in Conditions of Data Scarcity

      • Jessica P. Salazar, Jorge E. Patiño, Jairo A. Gómez, Juan C. Duque
      Pages 243-258

    3. Ecosystem Services from Space as Evaluation Metric of Human Well-Being in Deprived Urban Areas of the Majority World

      • Jan Haas
      Pages 259-285

    4. Making Urban Slum Population Visible: Citizens and Satellites to Reinforce Slum Censuses

      • Angela Abascal, Stefanos Georganos, Monika Kuffer, Sabine Vanhuysse, Dana Thomson, Jon Wang et al.
      Pages 287-302Open Access
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Editors and Affiliations

  • Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Monika Kuffer

  • Geomatics, Department of Environmental and Life Sciences, Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden

    Stefanos Georganos

About the editors

Monika Kuffer is an Associate Professor at the Faculty ITC (University of Twente, NL). Her research focuses on SDGs, poverty (deprivation), environment using Earth Observation, GIS, and AI. She (co)leads research projects on deprivation, e.g., IDEAtlas, SLUMAP, ONEKANA, ACCOUNT, IDEAMAPS. She is the Dutch representative of EARSeL (chair Developing Countries), EO Toolkit and  JURSE Steering Committee.


Stefanos Georganos is an Associate Professor at Karlstad University. He does research in remote sensing, spatial epidemiology, and machine learning. He is interested in the use of geo-information to help address the UN Sustainable Development Goals. He is the Secretary-General of the European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories (EARSeL) and co-chairperson of its Group on Developing Countries.

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