Multitemporal Change Detection Analysis in an Urbanized Environment Based upon Sentinel-1 Data

Abstract

The German Ruhr area is a highly condensed urban area that experienced a tremendous structural change over recent decades with the replacement of the coal and steel industries by other sectors. Consequently, a lot of major land cover changes happened. To retrospectively quantify such land cover changes, this study analysed synthetic aperture radar images of the Sentinel-1 satellites by applying the Google Earth Engine. Three satellite images are analysed by the multitemporal difference-adjusted dispersion threshold approach to capture land cover changes such as demolished buildings and new buildings by applying a threshold. This approach uses synthetic aperture radar data that are rarely considered in previously existing land cover change services. Urbanization or urban sprawl leads to changes in the urban form globally. These can be caused, for example, by migration or regionally by structural change, etc., such as in the study area presented here. The results are validated with reference data sets, which are publicly available nationally (e.g., house contour lines, normalized digital terrain model, digital orthophotos) or which are publicly available globally like the Global Urban Footprint and the World Settlement Footprint. Based on this, land cover changes could be identified for 21 locations within the study area of the city of Bochum.