International Workshop on Geospatial Solutions to Analyze Rapid Urbanization

Arizona State University, Scottsdale AZ

Investigators

Abstract

Worldwide demographic changes have resulted in shifts from predominantly rural lifestyles to ones with a much stronger emphasis on urban living. With more than 400 cities with populations exceeding 1 million persons, urban areas represent one of the most significant alterations that humankind has made to the surface of the earth. Professor Elizabeth Wentz in the Department of Geography at Arizona State University will host a workshop that explores the use of remotely sensed data and technologies to better understand the drivers and consequences of rapid urbanization on the biophysical and social environment. Urban remote sensing has proven to be a useful tool for cross-scale urban planning and urban ecological research. Using remote sensing to document and analyze rapid urbanization can facilitate planning and new policies to better protect the natural environment, human life, and built structures. Urban remote sensing can be applied to create practical models and products for tracking farmland conversion, land use and land cover changes (LULC), floodplain analysis, urban heat island modeling, and vegetation monitoring - from crop types to urban green spaces or forest ecological changes, for example. LULC classifications can be incorporated into local and regional ecosystem models to assess the effects of urban change on carbon cycling and source/sink relationships. The present project aims to better understand the social and physical dynamics of cities worldwide including the political, social, economic, and physical elements. To initiate a research plan to meet this challenge, the project will involve bringing together a team of scholars and practitioners worldwide to build a suite of data and analytical tools to characterize the range of dimensions of global cities. The present project funds 18 participants, including senior scholars, PhD students, and city practitioners to participate in a 3-day workshop in Arizona. The workshop is organized around six themes -- Theme 1: track urban area growth and change: speed, density, direction, structures, impervious surfaces, land consumed; Theme 2: assess the spatial arrangement of green/open space within cities and at the periphery: amount, distribution, connectivity; Theme 3: monitor changes to peri-urban regions: farmland conversions, wetland infringement, biodiversity threats; Theme 4: track land-cover and land-use changes that influence urban climatology and atmospheric deposition: impervious surfaces, vegetation cover, dust; Theme 5: monitor urban growth as it intersects with areas of potential environmental hazards: earthquake, subsidence, mudslides, floods, tsunami;Theme 6: map environmental parameters (microclimate, heat island, access to open space, percent of impervious surface, percent of green space), assess the geographic differences within the region, and identify correlations with social, economic, and ethnic divisions.