New article now in press at Remote Sensing of Environment

Check out our recent research Detecting change in urban areas at continental scales with MODIS data in this upcoming issue of Remote Sensing of Environment.  This work, completed as part of Carly Mertes' Master's thesis, demonstrates a methodology for monitoring urban land expansion at continental to global scales using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data.  The new method focuses on resolving the spectral and temporal ambiguities between urban/non-urban land and stable/changed areas by: (1) spatially constraining the study extent to known locations of urban land; (2) integrating multi-temporal data from multiple satellite data sources to classify c. 2010 urban extent; and (3) mapping newly built areas (2000-2010) within the 2010 urban land extent using a multi-temporal composite change detection approach based on MODIS 250 m annual maximum enhanced vegetation index (EVI).  The method is tested in 15 countries in East-Southeast Asia experiencing different rates and manifestations of urban expansion.