Urban area mapping using ASAR wide swath mode and Landsat data: A comparison on eastern China

Mapping human settlements on wide geographical areas may require the use of multiple sensors, possibly with different spatial resolution. The objective of this research is to compare human settlement maps extracted using both ASAR Wide Swath Mode data at 75 m spatial posting and multispectral Landsat data at 30 m spatial posting in eastern China. This paper provides a detailed comparison among the results of different methodologies and with respect to independent extractions, both visually and by means of quantitative accuracy indexes. Considering the global coverage, multitemporal ASAR WSM data are quite promising for urban monitoring, but its coarser spatial resolution makes it more suitable for larger human settlements.