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International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XXXIX-B7, 2012
XXII ISPRS Congress, 25 August — 01 September 2012, Melbourne, Australia
DEFINING DENSITIES FOR URBAN RESIDENTIAL TEXTURE, THROUGH LAND USE
CLASSIFICATION, FROM LANDSAT TM IMAGERY: CASE STUDY OF SPANISH
MEDITERRANEAN COAST
N. Colaninno**, J. Roca“, M. Burns“, B. Alhaddad®
? CPSV, Centre of Land Policy and Valuations of the Department of Architectural Technology I at Universitat
Politécnica de Catalunya, Barcelona Tech (UPC), Av. Diagonal 649, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
cpsv.info@upc.edu
Commission VII, WG VII/4
KEY WORDS: Land Use, Urban Patterns, Classification, Morphology, Planning, GIS, Landsat
ABSTRACT:
In the recent epoch, there has been considerable debate about the urban development along the European Mediterranean area, also
undertaken by the European Authorities, and in particular regarding the role of spatial planning in order to improve sustainable
trends of land use. Great transformations along the Spanish Mediterranean coast have generated considerable changes in the
traditional structure of the landscape, far from the typical model of Mediterranean cities, and the rapidity of these modern dynamics
has been a significant impact on the spatial patterns, also associated with the expansion of urban connections through the whole
territory. The increase of large peri-urban areas, sprawled on the territory, and caused by uncontrolled, uncoordinated and unplanned
growth, inevitably has brought the cancellation of clearly identifiable boundaries between the city and the rural areas. Spatial
analysis, within quantitative geography and linked to the emerging field of regional science, represents a synthesis of urban and
regional economics that is consistent with the complex sciences which dominate the simulation of urban form and functions. Most
urban models deal with the city in terms of the location of its economic and demographic activities, but there is also a move to link
such models to urban morphologies (Batty 2008). According with these concepts, the investigation, also supported by the use of
technologies such as remote sensing and GIS, aims to complement the spatial analysis of regional development dynamics by
classifying urban structures and quantifying some of main characteristics based on morphological features.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Overview and motivations
During the last decades, Spain has been undergoing important
processes of urban growth, which has implied the consumption
of large amounts of land, although the total population has
hardly increased. This consequence has been very important
along the coastal territory of Spanish Mediterranean side, where
modern and actual dynamics of development are requiring new
ways to analyze and quantify urban growth phenomena. Urban
settlements, and their own formal characteristics, have to be
wholly defined, being this basic information essential in spatial
planning, in order to prepare the best practices apt to "respond"
to the current challenges of territorial changes. How to extract
and analyze information about residential settlements quickly
and objectively is the foundation of the studies about economic
and social development. The improvement of remote sensing
technology provides a rapid tool for acquiring such information
quickly (Chen et al. 2010). Quite a lot of useful techniques
based on remote sensing technologies and methodologies for
automatic classification of urban landscape have been
developed, but there is still a challenge to find a generalized
and objective methodology to be applied in different situations
and geographical contexts. The use of automatic processes
requires the reduction, as much as possible, of subjective
interpretations and arbitrary interventions of analysts.
1.2 General objectives
The investigation aims to find a relative fast and objective
methodology to extract impervious areas on large landscapes
and define different types of urban models, depending on
morphological characteristics of land occupation. The work
pretend to strengthen the idea that new technologies can really
support all the process of planning both in the detection phase
than in the analysis, and in order to support all the decisions
which bring the final drafting of spatial plans.
1.3 Specific objectives
First pursued result is the classification of several land cover
categories along the Mediterranean side of Spain, through the
use of satellite imagery and remote sensing techniques. It will
be place emphasis on the impervious areas. After that we
pretend to improve a methodology for automatic categorization
of different typologies of urban texture, depending on their
physical characteristics and based on a set of indicators such as
size, shape, density and fragmentation of the urban settlements.
Final result will be the automatic classification of three main
morphological models of urban fabric: continuous,
discontinuous, and scattered. It will be achieved by using
statistical techniques such as factorial and cluster analysis.
* Architect and PhD candidate in Urban and Architectural Management and Valuations at UPC, Universitat Politecnica de
Catalunya, Barcelona Tech. Researcher at the LMVC, Virtual City Modelling Lab of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya,
Av. Diagonal 649, 4* pl. 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
nicola.colaninno@gmail.com
Tel: 0034 934011933. E-mail: nicola.colaninno@upc.edu