TY - JOUR
T1 - Mapping urban areas on a global scale
T2 - Which of the eight maps now available is more accurate?
AU - Potere, David
AU - Schneider, Annemarie
AU - Angel, Shlomo
AU - Civco, Daniel L.
N1 - Funding Information:
Thanks to Budhu Bhaduri and Eddie Bright from the Geographic Information Science and Technology team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for providing steady support for this research. The authors also thank Alessandro Baccini, Erle Ellis, Neal Feierabend, Mark Friedl, Kosuke Imai, Mutlu Ozdogan, Jason Parent, Kevin Sahr, Burt Singer, Chris Small, Will Turner, Ben Tuttle and Alan Strahler for assistance with this research. This work was made possible in part by support from the Department of Energy’s Computational Science Graduate Fellowship and Princeton University’s Office of Population Research.
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - Eight groups from government and academia have created 10 global maps that offer a ca 2000 portrait of land in urban use. Our initial investigation found that their estimates of the total amount of urban land differ by as much as an order of magnitude (0.27-3.52 × 106 km2). Since it is not possible for these heterogeneous maps to all represent urban areas accurately, we undertake the first global accuracy assessment of these maps using a two-tiered approach that draws on a stratified random sample of 10 000 high-resolution Google Earth validation sites and 140 medium-resolution Landsat-based city maps. Employing a wide range of accuracy measures at different spatial scales, we conclude that the new MODIS 500 m resolution global urban map has the highest accuracy, followed by a thresholded version of the Global Impervious Surface Area map based on the Night-time Lights and LandScan datasets.
AB - Eight groups from government and academia have created 10 global maps that offer a ca 2000 portrait of land in urban use. Our initial investigation found that their estimates of the total amount of urban land differ by as much as an order of magnitude (0.27-3.52 × 106 km2). Since it is not possible for these heterogeneous maps to all represent urban areas accurately, we undertake the first global accuracy assessment of these maps using a two-tiered approach that draws on a stratified random sample of 10 000 high-resolution Google Earth validation sites and 140 medium-resolution Landsat-based city maps. Employing a wide range of accuracy measures at different spatial scales, we conclude that the new MODIS 500 m resolution global urban map has the highest accuracy, followed by a thresholded version of the Global Impervious Surface Area map based on the Night-time Lights and LandScan datasets.
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U2 - 10.1080/01431160903121134
DO - 10.1080/01431160903121134
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:70450268046
SN - 0143-1161
VL - 30
SP - 6531
EP - 6558
JO - International Journal of Remote Sensing
JF - International Journal of Remote Sensing
IS - 24
ER -