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If remote sensing data are only used for landscape monitoring and land-use classification, the experiences of the 
methodological tools of satellite data will only partially be exploited. Due to the improved geometric resolution of new 
sensors the analysis of settlement areas is faced with new challenges. Depending on higher monitoring scales the 
analysis could even then involve the identification of single objects if only whole settlement areas of towns and villages 
need to be derived. Because of such extended possibilities, several current research efforts try to develop new strategies 
for very heterogeneous and rapidly changing urban and suburban areas from different points of view. With an 
increasingly better precision predication about e.g. abiotic and biotic components in landscapes and the sealing degree 
in urban agglomerations are possible. 
2. REMOTE SENSING DATA AND ITS ROLE FOR URBAN AND REGIONAL MONITORING 
The vast political changes in east Germany also caused rapid natural and anthropogenic changes that are hardly being 
recognizable by means of conventional investigation methods. Basic pieces of information on potential natural 
structures in landscapes and in biotopes can no longer be delivered by spot checks. Information density is low because 
of lacking regional mapping. Furthermore, the reduced ability to realize and control environmental changes in time is 
another hint showing us the necessity to establish a system observing, controlling, and evaluating the state in which our 
environment is in and making its changes recordable, able to be quantified and assessed. 
Latest satellite-based remote sensing data (e.g. IRS-1C&D, IKONOS) can make a crucial contribution concerning the 
presented problems for drawing up the inventory and beyond that for current observation of regions. Geometrically and 
spectrally they are suitable to enter most diverse structures and features of a cultural landscape. Moreover, they offer 
two advantages essential for monitoring: for rather small cost expenditures they supply topical and surface covering 
information, and the data can be repeatedly gained in short periods. Additionally, aerial photographs (e.g. CIR- 
photographs, taken to produce a country-wide biotope mapping) are available in many urban regions, which are from 
special use as further sources of information. The use of fuzzy logic classifications and the application of textural 
parameters allow special classification methods that enable better exploitation of different data. Furthermore, the 
combination of remote sensing data and spatial models allow predictions that can be essential for urban and regional 
planning (see chapter 5). 
Spatial planning requires information on the state of land use in short time intervals, and in high spatial and spectral 
resolution. This demand can only be met by using the latest satellite data that offer an optimum spectral analysis at a 
high scale. The Indian satellite IRS-1C&D currently delivers multispectral data on 23 metres and a 5-metre 
panchromatic image at the same time. Landsat TM — 7 possesses a 30 metres multispectral image and a 15 metres 
panchromatic plus a 60 metres thermal band. Such satellites and sensors offer basic data information for regional 
planning and, with their simultaneous records, are a challenge for the analysis of image fused data. Other sensors such 
as IKONOS-2, launched in September 1999, or Orbview 3 are capable of collecting both panchromatic images at a 
resolution of one meter, and multispectral images with a resolution of four meters. As they image an 11-kilometer-wide 
strip or, respectively, an 8-kilometer-wide strip their data will mainly be applied on small test sites at a high scale. 
These data will offer diverse possibilities to work on urban structures, linear structures in landscapes, or to develop new 
parameters for landscape metrics. 
Satellite data and further geo-information data are used for landscape ecological evaluations, e.g. to predict structural 
diversity in landscape, to derive quantitative data on open space fragmentation and on interlink of biotope structures. 
Satellite images are just as much used to identify compensational areas for planning of building land in conurbations or 
to quantify landscape metrics by means of derived IRS-1C parameters in order to calculate neighbourhood relations of 
objects. 
3. LANDSCAPE STRUCTURE ANALYSIS AS A NEW TOOL FOR NATURE SPACE POTENTIAL 
ANALYSIS 
After Plachter (1991) and Fiedler et al. (1996) the dimensions of human influence on spatial structures are so 
fundamental that land use is entitled to an indicator function for the detection and valuation of a social influence 
(Schónfelder 1984). The appearance of a landscape is characterised by its natural equipment including its complex 
effects on the one hand and the social demand expressed by intensive land use and multipurpose land demands on the 
other hand. Therefore landscape monitoring is understood as a system of observations showing modifications in the 
state of landscape under the effect of human concern, and referring to landscape components such as vegetation and soil 
cover, land use as well as landscape structure. 
  
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part B7. Amsterdam 2000. 119