Information system for monitoring the urban environment based on satellite remote sensing: Shanghai as an example

A software package was developed for the purpose of monitoring the urban environment. It was tested in the entire urban area of Shanghai using TM and SPOT pan data. The water areas, houses, skyscrapers and green areas in the city were extracted. The TM and SPOT pan data were merged through different methods and compared. The accuracy of the extracted water areas is over 95% and that of the recognized skyscrapers is over 90%. The user accuracy of the extracted houses was increased by 30% and that of green areas by 11%.