The Methodology Used

The methodology used for the production of the four land use databases for urban and peri-urban areas of the studied cities, relies on satellite images/aerial photographs processing and computer assisted photo-interpretation of images and photos. The data refers to the year 1997, mid of 1980, end of 1960 and mid of 1950. The urban area (Artificial Surfaces in CORINE legend) plus a buffer around the urban areas delimits the area of study for every city considered by MURBANDY/CHANGE Project.

Effort in processing historical data sets in general depends on the nature and the type of data (i.e. aerial photos, ortho photos, maps). Minimum mapping unit is 1ha for Artificial Surfaces and 3ha for non-Artificial Surfaces. The reference land use database is produced from photo-interpretation techniques of the IRS-1C imagery, will correspond to a 1: 25,000 scale map and is provided in Arc/Info compatible format.

Linear features such as transportation (road and rail) and river network are digitised as linear features. Only the linear features that are also displayed on a 1:25,000 topographic sheet are taken into account. MURBANDY uses the CORINE Land Cover nomenclature while for Artificial Surfaces class a fourth level has been added. 

Historical land use databases are produced through interpretation and comparison with the reference image and reference database. Historical land use databases are geo-referenced if not referenced already. Technical details are the same as for the reference database. Reference and historic land use databases are improved and formatted for final delivery to the client.

Table 1. Legend adopted for MURBANDY under class 1 (Artificial Surfaces)

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4 (new, introduced for MURBANDY)

1. Artificial surfaces

1.1 Urban fabric

 1.1.1 Residential continuous urban fabric 1.1.1.1 Residential continuous dense urban fabric

1.2.1.3 Residential continuous medium dense urban fabric
   

1.1.2 Residential discontinuous urban fabric

 1.1.2.1 Residential discontinuous urban fabric

1.2.1.3 Residential discontinuous sparse urban  fabric
 

1.2 Industrial, commercial and transport units

1.2.1 Industrial or commercial, public and private units

1.2.1.1 Industrial areas

1.2.1.2 Commercial areas

1.2.1.3 Public and private services
   

1.2.2 Road and rail networks and associated land

 

 
   

1.2.3 Port areas

  
   

1.2.4 Airports

  
 

1.3 Mine, dump and construction sites

1.3.1 Mineral extraction sites

  
   

1.3.2 Dump sites

  
   

1.3.3 Construction sites

  
 

1.4 Artificial non-agricultural vegetated areas

1.4.1 Green urban areas

  

1.4.2 Sport and leisure facilities