882 
Figure Digitally processed Landsat-1 MSS subscene of NE part of Kansas City collected 13 August 1972. Left, 
visible red (Band 5, 500-600 nm); right, reflective infrared (Band 7, 800-1100 nm). The City Center is in the 
left central portion of the 80 m resolution image; moving eastward, one passes through older housing and then 
newer housing and into the suburb of Independence. Large agricultural fields are located in the floodplain of 
the Missouri River. 
Finally, examples of high resolution data are 
25 m resolution color photography taken with the 
S-190B Earth Terrain Camera carried on NASA's 
Skylab, 9.5 m resolution B&W photography taken by 
the Large Format Camera (LFC) from NASA's Shuttle 
Mission 41-G, High Resolution Visible (HRV) 10 and 
20 m resolution multi spectral data carried on the 
Systeme Probatoire d' Observation de la Terre (SPOT) 
satellite, proposed 15 m TM panchromatic data to be 
collected by Landsat-6, and Seasat Synthetic 
Aperture Radar (SAR) with 25 m resolution. 
2.1 Very Low Resolution Data 
A large urban region with an area of 100 square 
kilometers would be covered by over 80 AVHRR pixels, 
while over 400 pixels would be collected by the 
HCMR. The resolution of AVHRR (Figure 2) is 
adequate for generalized, Level 1 land use mapping 
as reported by Gervin et. al. (1983). Anderson et. 
al. (1976) suggest that "Urban and Built-Up Land" be 
a Level I land use class, in a hierarchical scheme; 
Gervin calls the analogous urban category 
"Developed". 
Urban settlement patterns may be detected using 
HCMR data. Bonn et. al. (1981) reports that even 
small towns with a population of 15,000 are "clearly 
visible as hot spots". 
Another application of very low resolution data 
collected over urban areas is in the area of energy 
utilization analysis. Welch and Zupko (1980) found 
that 3.6 km resolution, visual OLS data collected 
during the evening hours correlated highly with both 
reported urban energy consumption (kwh) and 
population. 
2.2 Low Resolution Data 
Five Landsat satellites have carried the 80 m 
resolution MSS, and many researchers have 
investigated its utility for urban applications. 
The 0.46 ha pixels collected over important land use 
types have different proportions of land cover -- 
concrete, asphalt, grass, shrubs, bushes, bare soil, 
Figure 4. Landsat-3 RBV image of Barranquilla, 
Columbia. Ernesto Cortissoz International Airport 
is in the southern portion of the 40 m resolution 
image; immediately to the north is the suburb, 
Soledad. A newly-constructed bypass highway skirts 
the western edge of the city and the Magdalena River 
forms the eastern boundary. Extensive port 
facilities, including an inner harbor, are visible 
along the river. Small cumulous clouds obscure some 
detail in the northern part of the city, but a great 
many streets can be detected throughout the urban 
area.