Mapping long-term dynamics of population and dwellings based on a multi-temporal analysis of urban morphologies

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Robert Hecht - , Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (Author)
  • Hendrik Herold - , Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (Author)
  • Martin Behnisch - , Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (Author)
  • Mathias Jehling - , Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (Author)

Abstract

Information on the distribution and dynamics of dwellings and their inhabitants is essential to support decision-making in various fields such as energy provision, land use planning, risk assessment and disaster management. However, as various different of approaches to estimate the current distribution of population and dwellings exists, further evidence on past dynamics is needed for a better understanding of urban processes. This article therefore addresses the question of whether and how accurately historical distributions of dwellings and inhabitants can be reconstructed with commonly available geodata from national mapping and cadastral agencies. For this purpose, an approach for the automatic derivation of such information is presented. The data basis is constituted by a current digital landscape model and a 3D building model combined with historical land use information automatically extracted from historical topographic maps. For this purpose, methods of image processing, machine learning, change detection and dasymetric mapping are applied. The results for a study area in Germany show that it is possible to automatically derive decadal historical patterns of population and dwellings from 1950 to 2011 at the level of a 100 m grid with slight underestimations and acceptable standard deviations. By a differentiated analysis we were able to quantify the errors for different urban structure types.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number2
JournalISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information
Volume8
Issue number1
Early online date21 Dec 2018
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2019
Peer-reviewedYes
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

Keywords

  • urban morphology; topographic maps; multi-temporal; population; dwelling units; estimation; dynamics; urban planning; dasymetric mapping; historical demography