Earth Observation in Support of Urban Resilience and Climate Adaptability Plans

ABSTRACT

Resilience and climate adaptability plans for the thermal environment at the urban scale describe the measures to control anthropogenic heat sources in view of reducing skin and air temperatures. Such plans are based either on field measurements and/or simulations to define the energy budget at the urban scale as well as of the energy exchange between urban elements of various types. In terms of the simulations, thorough knowledge of a number of urban parameters such as land surface albedo, land surface emissivity, land surface temperature and land use/land cover is required. In this paper, the potential of Earth Observation to support the extraction and spatial/temporal representation of the above parameters is presented, especially with respect to the development of resilience and climate adaptability plans for the thermal environment at the urban scale. The potential of Earth Observation is assessed, taking into consideration existing and future (Sentinel) satellite missions, as well as the spectral, spatial and temporal resolutions of the satellite data.

Keywords: