Remote Sensing-Based Proxies to Predict Socio-Economic and Demographic Data

Dear Colleagues,

The continuous urbanization in many cities of the Global South is coupled with rapid socio-economic and demographic changes in urban, peri-urban, and rural areas. Many cities in the Global South are rapidly growing, which is accompanied by urban transformation processes, such as gentrification, but also by an increase in poor urban neighborhoods. According to the United Nations, of the 36 fastest growing cities (with an average annual growth rate of more than 6%), seven are located in Africa, while 28 are found in Asia. Cities are commonly better studied as peri-urban or rural areas. But, in all areas, the socio-economic and demographic changes are rapid, their linkages are not well understood, and the data are often not available or are outdated. Traditional survey-based methods are slow and costly for covering large regions, and the data are mostly outdated when they are finally published (e.g., national census). Therefore, remote sensing has a vast potential to provide such information so as to support monitoring transformations and provide relevant information for planning and decision making. With this Special Issue, we aim to provide an outlook on how EO-based proxies of socio-economic and demographic data could contribute to rapidly providing relevant information when large areal coverage and/or multi-temporal information is required, in support of sustainable development, in general, and specifically, supporting the monitoring of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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Dr. Monika Kuffer
Dr. Tais Grippa
Dr. Caroline Kabaria
Ms. Dana R Thomson
Ms. Naledzani Mudau
Guest Editors

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• Sustainable Development 
• Socio-Economic Data 
• Demographic Data 
• Remote Sensing-Based Proxies 
• Sustainable Development Goals 
• Urban and Regional Planning
• Urban–Rural Disparities