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REPORT OF WORKING GROUP NO. 5,
COMMISSION VII
by Lt Colonel Norman E. Green,
USAF
During the four year period between Congresses,
Working Group # 5 has attempted to determine and re-
port on new developments and new applications in this
broad area of urban, rural and industrial photo inter-
pretation. Information from several sources indicates
that there are indeed many important activities and pro-
jects of special interest to this Group. Replies were
not received from all contacts, and at the present
writing very little news on this matter has been forth-
coming from national reporters.
Nevertheless, from the information available, it has
become quite evident that there is an increasing inter-
est in urban, rural and industrial photo interpretation.
In addition, the Working Group has reports on several
projects which clearly indicate a new trend in the
application of this field of photo interpretation. It
was then decided that rather than make & random selec-
tion from a fairly large number of worthy projects, it
would be of greater interest to the Congress to report
on a limited few where certain specific innovations or
technical developments could be highlighted. At the
present time, three formal papers are listed and more
are expected before the Congress convenes. Also, some
discussion time is being reserved for recognizing cer-
tain special individual contributions. For one thing,
it would be desirable to consider uses of photo inter-
pretation studies in urban market analysis and consumer
research. As another example, information on rural
farm structural studies for such purposes as adminis-
trative planning and census taking should be brought
up to date.
In spite of these lags, always present in such re-
porting procedures, we believe that we have a suffi-
ciently representative sample of new developments in
this area of interest to support an important general
conclusion. This is, specifically, that photo inter-
pretation studies of urban areas - including their
industrial complexes and rural fringes, are now con-
cerned more than ever before with the human problems
of expanding populations and socio-economic integra-
tion. This underlying concern with integration and
development planning is a core concept tying in the
interests of urban, rural and industrial as well as
regional elements.
The Working Group # survey shows that photo inter-
pretation is playing an increasingly active role in
all of this by providing supporting studies with new
adaptations directly related to socio-economic problems.
A few brief examples and further elaboration will serve
to underscore this conclusion characterizing recent
trends in this broadening field of photo interpretation.
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First, as diverse as they may appear to be, the tech-
nical papers which Working Group # 5 is presenting do
have one common denominator. In each case, the authors
are concerned with some phase of a social problem re-
lated to growing areal complexes. The ecological as-
pects of human behavior, restricted and conditioned
by urban traffic patterns, reflects a very real problem
having implications in the daily lives of millions of
people in cities all over the world. The health and
safety of urban dwellers is the basic concern underly-
ing the special project relating photo interpretation
to medical research on radiation effects. This work
also has wide spread human implications and inter-
national interest.
Finally, there is a growing interest in developing
and refining methods for utilizing photo interpretation
for collecting data on urban populations and social
structure. This kind of endeavor is a recognition of
the increasing need for more planning information and
systematic studies regerding the human problems of
expanding economies.
In all of these efforts - and many more could be
cited - the state of the art in photo interpretation is
being advanced to a more refined technology to be applied
to problems beyond the traditional studies of physical
structures. As it long has been a working method for
the geologist, engineer and other professions, photo in-
terpretation has now become a study medium for the social
scientist concerned with urban and regional analysis.
As a supplementary source of data, and in some cases as
an adequate alternative to costly field surveys, photo
interpretation may provide information on ecological or-
ganization, population size and density distributions,
land use characteristics, human settlements, socio-
economics subareas, housing problems, health and welfare,
transportation, requirements and patterns of development,
growth and change. Photo-interpretation is playing this
new role because of the fact that when areal complexes
are considered as socio-physical systems, it is possible
to develop relationships through which the more elusive
social data can be derived from the more obvious physical-
spatial-structural information on the air photographs.
ADDITIONAL APPLICATIONS OF INTEREST
Dr. Frank Walker of England reports that large scale
maps and city plans are regularly produced using aerial
photographs. These maps call for the interpretation of
the smallest features of the urban and industrial scene.
Scales at least as large as 1/500 are now commonly used
and work at a scale of 1/240 is in progress.
A specialised application of air photographs in
civil engineering which is being adopted for railway
work in Britain is its use for progress reports on
work in hand.
Perhaps the most interesting new technique reported
by Dr. Walker is that of providing cross sections and
longitudinal profiles for road and rail engineers in
such a form that, combined with design statistics, the
data can be fed into a computer which provides infor-
mation on the amount of cut and fill required for a
given route.
Mr. H. W. Dill, Jr. of the U. S. Department of
Agriculture reports that the use of airphoto analysis
to study the impact of urban development on farmland
has been expanded in the Agricultural Research Service,
U. S. Department of Agriculture. A methodology has
been developed using successive coverage of airphotos
to identify and measure areas of change in land use.
U. S. Department of Airphoto coverages at 1:20,000 have
been used as well as photo index sheets to study several
areas (Dill 1958, 1959).
Publications - Urban Development
Dill, H. W., Jr., (1958), "Information on Land from Air-
photo," Yearbook of Agriculture, U. 8. Department of
Agriculture.
Dill, H. W., Jr., (1959), "Use of the Comparison Method
in Agricultural Airphoto Interpretation," Photogrammetric
Engineering, Vol. XXV, No. 1, March.
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