Remote sensing and engineering: An interdisciplinary approach to assess vulnerability in urban areas

Abstract

Urban areas especially in developing countries suffer from rapid changes due to explosive immigration and sprawl. Expectations predict an almost complete absorption of the world’s population growth between 2000 and 2030 by urban areas in less developed regions. One out of every two large cities in the developing world is vulnerable to natural disasters such as floods, severe storms, landslides and earthquakes. This paper presents an interdisciplinary approach combining remote sensing and civil engineering to assess vulnerability in urban areas. The aim is to develop new methodologies as well as interfaces to benefit from the potentials existing in both sources. It is shown how complex urban characteristics are classified area-wide from high resolution satellite imagery. The relevant building classes are allocated through analysis of the thematic urban land cover classification by parameters like roof type or building height. These parameters serve as input to estimate the behaviour of structures affected by natural disasters. Final result is the expected risk as an interaction between physical hazard and vulnerability. It is precisely the use of area-wide information from remote sensing and the adaptation of civil engineering methods which are the important improvements and indicate the future for vulnerability assessments.