• Energy Research
• 13. Climate action close

Sustainable development is a key component in urban studies. Earth Observation (EO) can play a valuable role in sustainable urban development and planning, since it represents a powerful data source with the potential to provide a number of relevant urban sustainability indicators. To this end, in this paper we propose a conceptual list of EO-based indicators capable of supporting urban planning and management. Three cities with different typologies, namely Basel, Switzerland; Tel Aviv, Israel; and Tyumen, Russia were selected as case studies. The EO-based indicators are defined to effectively record the physical properties of the urban environment in a diverse range of environmental sectors such as energy efficiency, air pollution and public health, water, transportation and vulnerability to hazards. The results assess the potential of EO to support the development of a set of urban environmental indicators towards sustainable urban planning and management.

Sustainable development is a key component in urban studies. Earth Observation (EO) can play a valuable role in sustainable urban development and planning, since it represents a powerful data source with the potential to provide a number of relevant urban sustainability indicators. To this end, in this paper we propose a conceptual list of EO-based indicators capable of supporting urban planning and management. Three cities with different typologies, namely Basel, Switzerland; Tel Aviv, Israel; and Tyumen, Russia were selected as case studies. The EO-based indicators are defined to effectively record the physical properties of the urban environment in a diverse range of environmental sectors such as energy efficiency, air pollution and public health, water, transportation and vulnerability to hazards. The results assess the potential of EO to support the development of a set of urban environmental indicators towards sustainable urban planning and management.

In this paper we present a study on the use of remote sensing data combined to the 3D modeling of radiative transfer (RT) and energy balance in urban canopies in the aim to improve our knowledge on anthropogenic heat fluxes in several European cities (London, Basel, Heraklion, and Toulouse). The approach is based on the forcing by the use of LandSAT8 data of a coupled radiative transfer model DART (Direct Anisotropic Radiative Transfer) (www.cesbio.upstlse.fr/dart) with an energy balance module. LandSAT8 visible remote sensing data is used to better parametrize the albedo of the urban canopy and thermal remote sensing data is used to enhance the anthropogenic component in the coupled model. This work is conducted in the frame of the H2020 project URBANFLUXES, which aim is to improve the efficiency of remote-sensing data usage for the determination of the anthropogenic heat fluxes in urban canopies [5].

In this paper we present a study on the use of remote sensing data combined to the 3D modeling of radiative transfer (RT) and energy balance in urban canopies in the aim to improve our knowledge on anthropogenic heat fluxes in several European cities (London, Basel, Heraklion, and Toulouse). The approach is based on the forcing by the use of LandSAT8 data of a coupled radiative transfer model DART (Direct Anisotropic Radiative Transfer) (www.cesbio.upstlse.fr/dart) with an energy balance module. LandSAT8 visible remote sensing data is used to better parametrize the albedo of the urban canopy and thermal remote sensing data is used to enhance the anthropogenic component in the coupled model. This work is conducted in the frame of the H2020 project URBANFLUXES, which aim is to improve the efficiency of remote-sensing data usage for the determination of the anthropogenic heat fluxes in urban canopies [5].

Monitoring carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of urban areas is increasingly important to assess the progress towards the Paris Agreement goals for climate neutrality. Cities are currently voluntarily developing their local inventories, however, the approaches used across different cities are not systematically assessed, present consistency issues, neglect the biogenic fluxes and have restricted spatial and temporal resolution. In order to assess the accuracy of the urban emission inventories and provide information which is useful for planning local climate change mitigation actions, high resolution modelling approaches combined or evaluated with atmospheric observations are needed. This study presents a new high-resolution bottom-up (BU) model which provides hourly maps of all major components contributing to the local urban surface CO2 flux (i.e. building emissions, traffic emissions, human respiration, soil respiration, plant respiration, plant photosynthetic uptake) and can therefore be used for direct comparison with in-situ atmospheric observations and development of local scale atmospheric inversion methodologies. The model design aims to be simple and flexible using inputs that are available in most cities, facilitating transferability to different locations. The inputs are primarily based on open geospatial datasets, census information, road traffic monitoring and basic meteorological parameters. The model is applied on the city centre of Basel, Switzerland, for the year 2018 and the results are compared to a local inventory. It is demonstrated that the model captures the highly dynamic spatiotemporal variability of the urban CO2 fluxes according to main environmental drivers, population activity dynamics and geospatial information proxies. The annual modelled emissions from buildings and traffic are estimated 14.8 % and 9 % lower than the respective information derived by the local inventory. The differences are mainly attributed to the emissions from the industrial areas and the highways which are beyond the geographical coverage of the model.