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Recent Trends in Spatial Analysis and Modelling of Built-Environment Characteristics

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A special issue of ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information (ISSN 2220-9964).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2016) | Viewed by 78636

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Martin Behnisch

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Guest Editor

Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development, Dresden, Saxony, Germany
Interests: spatial analysis; geographic knowledge discovery; urban data mining; spatial science; quantitative geography; multivariate data analysis; research on building stocks and land consumption
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Dr. Gotthard Meinel

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Guest Editor

Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development, Dresden, Saxony, Germany
Interests: land-use monitoring by topographic data analysis; spatio-temporal information retrieval; remote sensing; monitoring technologies; sustainable development; data acquisition; visualization and geocomputation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The International Land Use Symposium will be held from 11–13 November, 2015, in Dresden, Germany.

The symposium brings together leading academics and interested attendees for presentation, discussion, and collaborative networking, in the fields of spatial sciences, environmental studies, geography, cartography, GIScience, urban planning, and architecture, which relate to investigations of settlements and infrastructure. In particular, the interdisciplinary meeting will examine new ideas in overlapping fields of studies with the goal of advancing our understanding of built-up areas, and how recent developments in spatial analysis and modelling can lead to sustainable resource management, better support of planning and regional development, enhanced spatial information and knowledge, and optimized strategies, instruments and tools.

The symposium will be organised by the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER) in Dresden. We feel that this is an outstanding opportunity for you to share your scientific work and operational projects, and to network with an international community of scientists and practitioners.

The Special Issue is associated with the International Symposium. The aim of this Special Issue is to publish original research or review papers in order to stimulate further discussions on recent trends in spatial analysis and modelling of built-environment characteristics. The aim brings about many questions: What are the most relevant challenges and research questions in this topic over the coming years? What data and analysis strategies do we need? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the current frameworks and methods? In what way is theory development supported by the quantitative exploration of spatial and process-related interrelations, structures and patterns? Research may address (but is not limited to) the following topics in context of built-environment characteristics:

• Geographic Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery

Powerful algorithms for structural analysis and the visualization of large volumes of geo-data are in the scope of this topic. Directions are as follows: Multidimensional Analysis and Visualization, Self-Organizing Maps (SOM), Segmentation, Clustering and Classification, Spatial Regression, Spatial Association Rules, Machine Learning (ML), etc. The nontrivial process of the identification of understandable, valid, possibly novel and useful patterns in multidimensional data is to be discussed.

• Spatial Modelling, System Dynamics and Geosimulation

A number of research efforts have focused on presenting solutions for modelling and simulation of dynamic processes. Automata-based modelling should be discussed in theory and/or applications with primary focus on settlements and infrastructure: Cellular Automata (CA), Multi-Agent Systems (MAS), System Dynamics (SD), Evolutionary Algorithms, Modelling Dynamic Spatial Processes, etc.

• Multi-Scale Representation and Analysis

It is necessary to scale processes spatially and temporally in order to adequately understand phenomena in the context of settlement and infrastructure. Aggregation and disaggregation procedures, also known as up-scaling or down-scaling, are discussed for switching between various scales of spatial representation. Related to this is the “modifiable areal unit problem” (MAUP), omnipresent when working with spatial phenomena. Further directions are as follows: Generalization, Multiple Representation (MR), Conflation, Modelling Object Relations, Multi-Granularity, Geovisualization and Mapping, etc.

It is our pleasure to encourage both theoretical and application-oriented papers.

Conference Information:
Title: International Land Use Symposium (ILUS) 2015
Website: http://www.ioer.de/ilus2015/
Date: 11–13 November 2015
Location: Dresden, Germany

Martin Behnisch
Gotthard Meinel
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Built Environment Characteristics
Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining
System Dynamics and Geosimulation
Multiscale Representation and Analysis
Spatio-Temporal Modelling
Measuring Urban Sprawl
Drivers and Causes of Land Consumption
Spatial Planning and Decision Making
Monitoring of settlement and open space development
Research on Building Stocks
Decision-Support
Urban and Regional Studies
Environmental Science
Geography
Cartography

Published Papers (11 papers)

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Research

9597 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Analysing the Effects of Flood-Resilience Technologies in Urban Areas Using a Synthetic Model Approach

by Reinhard Schinke, Anna Kaidel, Sebastian Golz, Thomas Naumann, José Santos López-Gutiérrez and Stephen Garvin

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(11), 202; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5110202 - 07 Nov 2016

Cited by 19 | Viewed by 6905

Abstract

Flood protection systems with their spatial effects play an important role in managing and reducing flood risks. The planning and decision process as well as the technical implementation are well organized and often exercised. However, building-related flood-resilience technologies (FReT) are often neglected due to the absence of suitable approaches to analyse and to integrate such measures in large-scale flood damage mitigation concepts. Against this backdrop, a synthetic model-approach was extended by few complementary methodical steps in order to calculate flood damage to buildings considering the effects of building-related FReT and to analyse the area-related reduction of flood risks by geo-information systems (GIS) with high spatial resolution. It includes a civil engineering based investigation of characteristic properties with its building construction including a selection and combination of appropriate FReT as a basis for derivation of synthetic depth-damage functions. Depending on the real exposition and the implementation level of FReT, the functions can be used and allocated in spatial damage and risk analyses. The application of the extended approach is shown at a case study in Valencia (Spain). In this way, the overall research findings improve the integration of FReT in flood risk management. They provide also some useful information for advising of individuals at risk supporting the selection and implementation of FReT. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Trends in Spatial Analysis and Modelling of Built-Environment Characteristics)

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6120 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Workflow for Automatic Quantification of Structure and Dynamic of the German Building Stock Using Official Spatial Data

by André Hartmann, Gotthard Meinel, Robert Hecht and Martin Behnisch

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(8), 142; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5080142 - 09 Aug 2016

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 6575

Abstract

Knowledge of the German building stock is largely based on census data and annual construction statistics. Despite the wide range of statistical data, they are constrained in terms of temporal, thematic and spatial resolution, and hence do not satisfy all requirements of spatial planning and research. In this paper, we describe a new workflow for data integration that allows the quantification of the structure and dynamic of national building stocks by analyzing authoritative geodata. The proposed workflow has been developed, tested and demonstrated exemplarily for the whole country of Germany. We use nationwide and commonly available authoritative geodata products such as building footprint and address data derived from the real estate cadaster and land use information from the digital landscape model. The processing steps are (1) data preprocessing; (2) the calculation of building attributes; (3) semantic enrichment of the building using a classification tree; (4) the intersection with spatial units; and finally (5) the quantification and cartographic visualization of the building structure and dynamic. Applying the workflow to German authoritative geodata, it was possible to describe the entire building stock by 48 million polygons at different scale levels. Approximately one third of the total building stock are outbuildings. The methodological approach reveals that 62% of residential buildings are detached, 80% semi-detached and 20% terraced houses. The approach and the novel database will be very valuable for urban and energy modeling, material flow analysis, risk assessment and facility management. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Trends in Spatial Analysis and Modelling of Built-Environment Characteristics)

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3688 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Supervised Approach to Delineate Built-Up Areas for Monitoring and Analysis of Settlements

by Oliver Harig, Dirk Burghardt and Robert Hecht

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(8), 137; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5080137 - 06 Aug 2016

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 6486

Abstract

Monitoring urban growth and measuring urban sprawl is essential for improving urban planning and development. In this paper, we introduce a supervised approach for the delineation of urban areas using commonly available topographic data and commercial GIS software. The method uses a supervised parameter optimization approach along with buffer-based quality measuring method. The approach was developed, tested and evaluated in terms of possible usage in monitoring built-up areas in spatial science at a very fine-grained level. Results show that built-up area boundaries can be delineated automatically with higher quality compared to the settlement boundaries actually used. The approach has been applied to 166 settlement bodies in Germany. The study shows a very efficient way of extracting settlement boundaries from topographic data and maps and contributes to the quantification and monitoring of urban sprawl. Moreover, the findings from this study can potentially guide policy makers and urban planners from other countries. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Trends in Spatial Analysis and Modelling of Built-Environment Characteristics)

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6772 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Measuring Land Take: Usability of National Topographic Databases as Input for Land Use Change Analysis: A Case Study from Germany

by Martin Schorcht, Tobias Krüger and Gotthard Meinel

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(8), 134; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5080134 - 04 Aug 2016

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 5843

Abstract

The implementation of sustainable land policies is in need of monitoring methods that go beyond a mere description of the proportion values of land use classes. The annual statistical surface area report on actual land utilization (German: “Bodenfläche nach Art der tatsächlichen Nutzung”), published by the statistical offices of the German federal states and the federation, provides information on a set of pre-defined land use classes for municipalities, districts and federal states. Due to its surveying method of summing up usage information from cadastral registers, it is not possible to determine previous and subsequent usages of land parcels. Hence, it is hard to precisely indicate to what extent particular land use classes contribute to the settlement area increase. Nevertheless, this information is crucial to the understanding of land use change processes, which is needed for a subsequent identification of driving forces. To overcome this lack of information, a method for the spatial and quantitative determination of previous and subsequent land usages has been developed, implemented and tested. It is based on pre-processed land use data for different time slices, which are derived from authoritative geo-topographical base data. The developed method allows for the identification of land use changes considering small geometric shifts and changes in the underlying data model, which can be adaptively excluded from the balance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Trends in Spatial Analysis and Modelling of Built-Environment Characteristics)

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2010 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Soil Sealing and the Complex Bundle of Influential Factors: Germany as a Case Study

by Martin Behnisch, Hanna Poglitsch and Tobias Krüger

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(8), 132; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5080132 - 01 Aug 2016

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 6554

Abstract

In order to discuss the impact of land consumption, it is first necessary to localize and quantify the extent of sealed surfaces. Since 2010, the monitoring of land use structures and developments in Germany has been provided by the Monitor of Settlement and Open Space Development at the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IÖR; IÖR Monitor), a scientific service operated by the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development. The IÖR Monitor includes an indicator for soil sealing for the years 2006, 2009 and 2012. Using this new source of data, it is possible for the first time to conduct quantitative studies at the level of Germany’s municipalities with the aim of documenting the extent of soil sealing as a form of spatial classification, as well as to investigate possible correlations with other influential factors. Here, we describe a comprehensive data inspection of soil sealing and potential influential factors. Structural interrelationships are identified under the application of classical and spatial regression methods. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Trends in Spatial Analysis and Modelling of Built-Environment Characteristics)

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4660 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Integrated Simplification Approach for 3D Buildings with Sloped and Flat Roofs

by Jinghan Xie and Chen-Chieh Feng

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(8), 128; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5080128 - 23 Jul 2016

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 6440

Abstract

Simplification of three-dimensional (3D) buildings is critical to improve the efficiency of visualizing urban environments while ensuring realistic urban scenes. Moreover, it underpins the construction of multi-scale 3D city models (3DCMs) which could be applied to study various urban issues. In this paper, we design a generic yet effective approach for simplifying 3D buildings. Instead of relying on both semantic information and geometric information, our approach is based solely on geometric information as many 3D buildings still do not include semantic information. In addition, it provides an integrated means to treat 3D buildings with either sloped or flat roofs. The two case studies, one exploring simplification of individual 3D buildings at varying levels of complexity while the other, investigating the multi-scale simplification of a cityscape, show the effectiveness of our approach. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Trends in Spatial Analysis and Modelling of Built-Environment Characteristics)

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10262 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Size Distribution, Scaling Properties and Spatial Organization of Urban Clusters: A Global and Regional Percolation Perspective

by Till Fluschnik, Steffen Kriewald, Anselmo García Cantú Ros, Bin Zhou, Dominik E. Reusser, Jürgen P. Kropp and Diego Rybski

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(7), 110; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5070110 - 12 Jul 2016

Cited by 32 | Viewed by 7176

Abstract

Human development has far-reaching impacts on the surface of the globe. The transformation of natural land cover occurs in different forms, and urban growth is one of the most eminent transformative processes. We analyze global land cover data and extract cities as defined by maximally connected urban clusters. The analysis of the city size distribution for all cities on the globe confirms Zipf’s law. Moreover, by investigating the percolation properties of the clustering of urban areas we assess the closeness to criticality for various countries. At the critical thresholds, the urban land cover of the countries undergoes a transition from separated clusters to a gigantic component on the country scale. We study the Zipf-exponents as a function of the closeness to percolation and find a systematic dependence, which could be the reason for deviating exponents reported in the literature. Moreover, we investigate the average size of the clusters as a function of the proximity to percolation and find country specific behavior. By relating the standard deviation and the average of cluster sizes—analogous to Taylor’s law—we suggest an alternative way to identify the percolation transition. We calculate spatial correlations of the urban land cover and find long-range correlations. Finally, by relating the areas of cities with population figures we address the global aspect of the allometry of cities, finding an exponent δ ≈ 0.85, i.e., large cities have lower densities. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Trends in Spatial Analysis and Modelling of Built-Environment Characteristics)

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5996 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A SMAP Supervised Classification of Landsat Images for Urban Sprawl Evaluation

by Flavia Di Palma, Federico Amato, Gabriele Nolè, Federico Martellozzo and Beniamino Murgante

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(7), 109; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5070109 - 06 Jul 2016

Cited by 37 | Viewed by 7764

Abstract

The negative impacts of land take on natural components and economic resources affect planning choices and territorial policies. The importance of land take monitoring, in Italy, has been only recently considered, but despite this awareness, in the great part of the country, effective monitoring and containment measures have not been started, yet. This research proposes a methodology to map and monitor land use changes. To this end, a time series from 1985–2010, based on the multi-temporal Landsat data Thematic Mapper (TM), has been analyzed in the Vulture Alto-Bradano area, a mountain zone of the Basilicata region (Southern Italy). Results confirm a double potentiality of using these data: on the one hand, the use of multi-temporal Landsat data allows going very back in time, producing accurate datasets that provide a phenomenon trend over time; on the other hand, these data can be considered a first experience of open data in the field of spatial information. The proposed methodology provides agencies, local authorities and practitioners with a valuable tool to implement monitoring actions. This represents the first step to pursue territorial governance methods based on sustainability, limiting the land take. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Trends in Spatial Analysis and Modelling of Built-Environment Characteristics)

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3373 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Simulation and Evaluation of Urban Growth for Germany Including Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Measures

by Jana Hoymann and Roland Goetzke

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(7), 101; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5070101 - 23 Jun 2016

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 7447

Abstract

Decision-makers in the fields of urban and regional planning in Germany face new challenges. High rates of urban sprawl need to be reduced by increased inner-urban development while settlements have to adapt to climate change and contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions at the same time. In this study, we analyze conflicts in the management of urban areas and develop integrated sustainable land use strategies for Germany. The spatial explicit land use change model Land Use Scanner is used to simulate alternative scenarios of land use change for Germany for 2030. A multi-criteria analysis is set up based on these scenarios and based on a set of indicators. They are used to measure whether the mitigation and adaptation objectives can be achieved and to uncover conflicts between these aims. The results show that the built-up and transport area development can be influenced both in terms of magnitude and spatial distribution to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Strengthening the inner-urban development is particularly effective in terms of reducing built-up and transport area development. It is possible to reduce built-up and transport area development to approximately 30 ha per day in 2030, which matches the sustainability objective of the German Federal Government for the year 2020. In the case of adaptation to climate change, the inclusion of extreme flood events in the context of spatial planning requirements may contribute to a reduction of the damage potential. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Trends in Spatial Analysis and Modelling of Built-Environment Characteristics)

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8222 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Motorways in Metropolitan Areas: The Northwestern Growth of Florence and the Urban Use of Motorway A1

by Valerio Cutini

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(6), 77; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5060077 - 26 May 2016

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4536

Abstract

The recent urban growth of Florence was mainly oriented northward, thus determining the urbanization of the flatland and the inclusion within a unique conurbation of a number of pre-existing urban nuclei. Over time, the congestion of the inner core has caused more and more prominent activities to shift towards this developing area, which is today one of the most attractive parts of the whole settlement, counterbalancing the representativeness and the touristic attractiveness of the historic center of Florence. This paper is concerned with the use of space syntax in order to reconstruct the genesis of the configurational geography of Florence. Configurational values at different dates will be cross-referenced with vehicular traffic data, so as to pinpoint the actual inclusion of the motorway A1, touching Florence on its western side, within the urban grid of Florence and its influence in the distribution of local traffic flows. Aside from this case study, this method can be extended to the general issue of the management of motorways in metropolitan areas. More in general, this approach is proposed as a suitable tool for interconnecting spatial issues and traffic questions, so as to concur in bridging the gap between urban design, focused on the morphologic features of blocks and buildings, and transport analysis, strictly concerned with the distribution of movement flows on the street network. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Trends in Spatial Analysis and Modelling of Built-Environment Characteristics)

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4563 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Comprehensive View on Urban Spatial Structure: Urban Density Patterns of German City Regions

by Angelika Krehl, Stefan Siedentop, Hannes Taubenböck and Michael Wurm

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(6), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5060076 - 25 May 2016

Cited by 65 | Viewed by 11687

Abstract

Urban density must be considered a key concept in the description of a city’s urban spatial structure. Countless studies have provided evidence of a close relationship between built density and activity densities, on the one hand, and urban environmental conditions or social practices, on the other hand. However, despite the concept’s common use in urban research, urban density is a rather fuzzy and highly complex concept that is accompanied by a confusing variety of indicators and measurement approaches. To date, an internationally-accepted standard for the implementation of density indicators that permits a robust comparison of different countries, regions or cities is widely missing. This paper discusses the analytical opportunities that recent remote sensing data offer in regard to an objective and transparent measurement of built density patterns of city regions. It furthermore clarifies the interrelations between built and activity densities. We apply our approach to four German city regions to demonstrate the analytical capacity of spatially-refined density indicators for the purposes of comparative urban research at a regional scale. In so doing, we contribute to a more encompassing and robust understanding of the urban density concept when analyzing regional morphology. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Trends in Spatial Analysis and Modelling of Built-Environment Characteristics)

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