HUMAN POPULATION IS RAPIDLY URBANIZING WITH CONSEQUENCES FOR RESOURCE CONSUMPTION ENERGY USE AND GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS AND ECOSYSTEM AND PUBLIC HEALTH. PREDICTING GLOBAL URBANIZATION'S IMPACT REQUIRES SPATIO-TEMPORAL QUANTIFICATION OF URBAN RATES OF CHANGE WITH GLOBALLY CONSISTENT WELL-CALIBRATED DATA. MICROWAVE BACKSCATTER (SCATTEROMETER) DATA PROVIDE A DISTINCTIVE PERSPECTIVE ON THE EARTH'S SURFACE COMPLEMENTING OTHER REMOTE SENSING DATA TO CREATE A MORE COMPREHENSIVE PICTURE OF THE EARTH SYSTEM. RECENT WORK HAS SHOWN THAT QUIKSCAT BACKSCATTER DATA PROVIDES IMPORTANT UNIQUE INFORMATION ON GLOBAL URBANIZATION. WE WILL EXTEND AND EXPAND UPON OUR RECENT URBAN GROWTH RESEARCH USING QSCAT AND OTHER SCATTEROMETER DATA (KU-BAND: OSCAT RAPIDSCAT AND SCATSAT; C-BAND: ERS-1/2 ASCAT-A/B). WE WILL ANALYZE URBAN BACKSCATTER DATA FOR TEMPORAL TRENDS GEOGRAPHICAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL PATTERNS. URBAN BACKSCATTER DATA WILL BE EMPIRICALLY RELATED TO NON-MICROWAVE URBAN REMOTE SENSING DATA (E.G. DMSP/OLS NIGHTTIME LIGHTS LANDSAT MODIS VIIRS DAY-NIGHT BAND) AS WELL AS URBAN POPULATION GROWTH DATA. THIS MULTISENSOR MULTI-DECADAL TIME SERIES OF URBAN BACKSCATTER IN CONJUNCTION WITH OTHER DATA WILL PROVIDE THE BASIS FOR DEVELOPING A GLOBALLYCONSISTENT URBAN LAND SURFACE CLASSIFICATION. THIS MULTISENSORY DATABASE WILL ALSO BE EMPIRICALLY RELATED TO GROUND-BASED URBAN STRUCTURE DATA OR CHARACTERIZATION FOR URBAN CLIMATE STUDIES AND URBAN METABOLISM STUDIES. WE WILL CONTINUE TO USE THE EXTENSIVE SCATTEROMETER DATA COLLECTION GENERATED BY THE NASA SCATTEROMETER CLIMATE PATHFINDER PROJECT AT BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY ALLOWING US TO FOCUS ON INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS OF THE SCATTEROMETER DATA RATHER THAN (NECESSARY) RAW DATA PROCESSING.