Understanding Current Trends in Global Urbanisation - The World Settlement Footprint Suite

Abstract

To improve the understanding of current trends in global urbanisation, we have launched the World Settlement Footprint (WSF) suite, a collection of novel datasets aimed at providing accurate, reliable and frequent information on the location and extent of human settlements, as well as on their morphology and built-up density. In this paper, we present three of its products (i.e., the WSF-Evolution, WSF2019 and WSF3D), which are expected to become an asset for national statistical offices, local authorities, academia, civil society, private sector, geospatial information community, as well as international organisations involved in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goal 11 of the United Nations and the New Urban Agenda.