Remote Sensing of Socioeconomic Attributes

This chapter demonstrates methods for estimating population and assessing urban environmental quality (UEQ) through case studies. The population estimation study intended to combine the statistical‐based and dasymetric‐based methods and to redistribute census population. The case study of population estimation aimed to compare the effectiveness of the spectral response‐based and the land‐use (LU)‐based methods for population estimation of US census block groups and to produce a more accurate presentation of population distribution by combining the dasymetric mapping with LU‐based methods. The UEQ study intended to evaluate the UEQ changes from 1990 to 2000 in Indianapolis, Indiana, using the integrated techniques of remote sensing and geographic information system. Specifically, the chapter intends to derive an UEQ index based on the synthetic indicators of physical variables extracted from Landsat images and socioeconomic variables derived from US census data and to develop a new method for assessing UEQ change over the time.