Urban land use studies 
While remote sensing for natural environment studies has been under- 
utilized by planning agencies in Britain, the use of aerial photography 
in urban areas has been more common. Many local planning authorities 
possess photographs which have been used to varying degrees, and several 
projects carried out within the Unit have attempted to encourage usage 
and to indicate how aerial survey can be used to the greatest advantage. 
An early project, for example, assessed the value of different scales of 
black and white photography for interpreting land use and mapping it at 
various scales. The photographs at scales of 1:5000, 1:5000 and 1:10000 
were taken in 1971 and 1972 and were used to produce maps at scales of 
1:2500, 1:5000, 1:10000 and 1:100000 for selected areas of the old 
West Riding of Yorkshire (part of which is now West Yorkshire Metropolitan 
County). An example of one of these maps is given in Figure 1, 
The study areas included various types of urban development such as city 
centres (Leeds and York), suburban areas and rural settlement, In all 
areas no matter which scale of photography is used, there are certain 
types of land use which are difficult to interpret particularly where 
the form of the land use bears little resemblance to its function. For 
example many business premises, and buildings having a public or community 
function such as banks, post offices, libraries and offices are virtually 
impossible to distinguish from one another. 
Other problems have involved the classification of land use, obtaining 
ground truth within a time compatible with the data of photography and 
assessing the accuracy of interpretation. In spite of these difficulties 
however, it has been possible to recommend: the use of 1:5000 scale 
photography for mapping land uses throughout counties, or alternatively 
to use a 1:10000 scale for rural areas and retain the 1:5000 scale for 
urban areas (Collins, 1975). In addition a detailed guide to inter- 
preting land use from all the scales of photography previously mentioned 
has been compiled (Gibson, 1977). Such a guide should enable town 
planners with limited or non existent air photo interpretation experience 
to relate air photo images to land uses with which they have familiarity 
on the ground. 
A recent project, discussed more fully elsewhere (Sekliziotis and 
Collins, 1978), is examining one facet of urban land use, that of open 
space. The definition and classification of this type of land use is 
subject to many interpretations but in the context of this research is 
regarded as all land and water surfaces which do not support buildings 
or structures, Thus spaces associated with roads and railways, and open 
air car parks are included as well as the conventional spaces of parks 
and sportsfields, 
The ultimate purpose of this study is to relate the provision and main- 
tenance of open spaces in Merseyside Metropolitan County to the socio 
economic status of the people living around and amongst them. Initially 
the work has involved the comparison of 1:10000 scale black and white 
photographs (taken in 1974) with colour infra red photos (1975) of the 
same scale, in order to assess the best source for open space data. 
Although the two types of photography were taken in different years, the 
month was the same in each case (July), so that open space vegetation 
cover can be regarded as virtually identical in both sets of imagery. 
   
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