Analysis of Bucharest's Land Cover Evolution Over a Period of 33 Years Using Multi-Sensor Data

Abstract

Past and current EO (Earth Observation) satellite missions have gathered huge amount of data during the past decades. This offers the opportunity to retrieve significant information concerning the evolution of land cover for almost any point of interest (POI) on Earth's surface. This paper presents the evolution of land cover in the administrative area of Bucharest, Romania, over a time span of 33 years. In order to achieve this goal we use data acquired by multiple EO missions such as: Landsat 5 TM (Thematic Mapper), 7 ETM+ (Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus), 8 OLI/TIRS (Operational Land Im-ager/Thermal InfraRed Sensor) and Sentinel-2 MSI (Multi-Spectral Instrument). We compute several spectral indexes in order to obtain information regarding the surface coverage evolution for categories such as vegetation, water bodies and build up.