Special Issue "Advances in Applications of Remote Sensing for Urban Sustainability"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Geography and Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2022.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Jiayi Li
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China
Interests: urban remote sensing; urban ecology and environmental analysis; high-resolution remote sensing processing
Dr. Xian Guo
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Geomatics and Urban Spatial Informatics, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing 100044, China
Interests: urban remote sensing; multi-source data fusion; land use/cover change
Dr. Dawei Wen
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Public Administration, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Interests: remote sensing image processing; multi-temporal change analysis; sustainable urban development
Prof. Dr. Xin Huang
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China
Interests: remote sensing image processing and applications
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Large-scale, highly intensive urbanization has not only resulted in excessive use of natural resources but also put unprecedented pressure on the environment and ecosystems, prompting an urgent need for sustainable development. Our struggle for global sustainability will be lost or won in cities. Sustainable Development Goal 11, which promotes Sustainable Cities and Communities, underlines the important role of urban sustainability for global development pathways. However, there are still gaps between the requirements of urban sustainability applications and the capabilities of traditional statistical data. This is because the spatial and (especially) temporal heterogeneity and high cost of current statistical data exhibit limitations for accurate, large-scale urban sustainability evaluation and monitoring.

In this context, there has been a growing interest in using remote sensing data in urban sustainability applications. The wall to wall remotely sensed imagery with various resolutions and flexible and fast acquisition modes provides us with the potential to measure, analyze, and hence understand urban development worldwide. However, at this stage, the qualitative/quantitative relationship between urban sustainable development indicators and remote sensing data is not clear, which limits the large-scale application of remote sensing data in urban sustainable development evaluation. Therefore, it is timely for a Special Issue of the Sustainability journal to provide a snapshot of the most recent advances and breakthroughs with particular focus on the applications of remote sensing for urban sustainability.

Prof. Dr. Jiayi Li
Dr. Xian Guo
Dr. Dawei Wen
Prof. Dr. Xin Huang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • spatiotemporal analysis of urban expansion
  • remote-sensing-based urban sustainability assessment
  • urban land cover/land use monitoring
  • remote sensing for urban ecology, environment, and livability
  • urban socioeconomic development
  • urban growth on natural ecology, environment, and habitat comfort
  • imbalance urban development
  • remote sensing for urban planning
  • remote sensing for city public services

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

Article
Assessing Potential Bioenergy Production on Urban Marginal Land in 20 Major Cities of China by the Use of Multi-View High-Resolution Remote Sensing Data
Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7291; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137291 - 29 Jun 2021
Viewed by 293
Abstract
For the purpose of bioenergy production, biomass cropping on marginal land is an appropriate method. Less consideration has been given to estimating the marginal land in cities at a fine spatial resolution, especially in China. Marginal land within cities has great potential for [...] Read more.
For the purpose of bioenergy production, biomass cropping on marginal land is an appropriate method. Less consideration has been given to estimating the marginal land in cities at a fine spatial resolution, especially in China. Marginal land within cities has great potential for bioenergy production. Therefore, in this research, the urban marginal land of 20 representative cities of China was estimated by using detailed land-cover and 3D building morphology information derived from Ziyuan-3 high-resolution remote sensing imagery, and ancillary geographical data, including land use, soil type, and digital elevation model data. We then classified the urban marginal land into “vacant land” and “land between buildings”, and further revealed its landscape patterns. Our results showed that: (1) the suitable marginal land area ranged from 17.78 ± 1.66 km2 to 353.48 ± 54.19 km2 among the 20 cities; (2) it was estimated that bioethanol production on marginal land could amount to 0.005–0.13 mT, corresponding to bioenergy of 2.1 × 1013–4.0 × 1014 J for one city; (3) from the landscape viewpoint, the marginal landscape pattern tended to be more fragmented in more developed cities. Our results will help urban planners to reclaim unused urban land and develop distributed bioenergy projects at the city scale. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Applications of Remote Sensing for Urban Sustainability)
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Article
Dynamic Changes of Local Climate Zones in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area and Their Spatio-Temporal Impacts on the Surface Urban Heat Island Effect between 2005 and 2015
Sustainability 2021, 13(11), 6374; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13116374 - 03 Jun 2021
Viewed by 583
Abstract
Local climate zones (LCZs) emphasize the influence of representative geometric properties and surface cover characteristics on the local climate. In this paper, we propose a multi-temporal LCZ mapping method, which was used to obtain LCZ maps for 2005 and 2015 in the Guangdong–Hong [...] Read more.
Local climate zones (LCZs) emphasize the influence of representative geometric properties and surface cover characteristics on the local climate. In this paper, we propose a multi-temporal LCZ mapping method, which was used to obtain LCZ maps for 2005 and 2015 in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), and we analyze the effects of LCZ changes in the GBA on land surface temperature (LST) changes. The results reveal that: (1) The accuracy of the LCZ mapping of the GBA for 2005 and 2015 is 85.03% and 85.28%, respectively. (2) The built type category showing the largest increase in area from 2005 to 2015 is LCZ8 (large low-rise), with a 1.01% increase. The changes of the LCZs also vary among the cities due to the different factors, such as the economic development level and local policies. (3) The area showing a warming trend is larger than the area showing a cooling trend in all the cities in the GBA study area. The main reasons for the warming are the increase of built types, the enhancement of human activities, and the heat radiation from surrounding high-temperature areas. (4) The spatial morphology changes of the built type categories are positively correlated with the LST changes, and the morphological changes of the LCZ4 (open high-rise) and LCZ5 (open midrise) built types exert the most significant influence. These findings will provide important insights for urban heat mitigation via rational landscape design in urban planning management. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Applications of Remote Sensing for Urban Sustainability)
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