The changing face of urban growth: An analysis using earth observation data

This paper is a research effort to monitor the development of urban morphology using earth observation data. For the city of Cologne in Germany, satellite images over a time period of more than 30 years are analyzed regarding the urban development. These urban footprints describe the 2-D spatial urban extension of the city at a given point in time. These data are spatially intersected with a geometrically highly resolved 3-D building model derived from a digital surface model. The data set allows for a 2-D and 3-D growth analysis of Cologne for more than three decades based on three variables: area, building volume and the number of buildings. The analysis underlines the hypothesis that recent urban growth is much more space consuming than historic urban developments.