Accuracy Assessment of the Building Height Copernicus Data Layer: A Case Study of Bratislava, Slovakia

Open and high-temporal- and spatial-resolution global land use/land cover (LULC) mapping data form the foundation of global change research and cross-scale land management planning. However, the consistency and reliability of the use of multisource LULC datasets in specific regions need to be quantitatively assessed. In this study, we selected the Indochina Peninsula as the research area; considered four datasets: LSV10, GLC_FCS30, ESRI10, and Globeland30; and analyzed them from four dimensions: the similarity of composition type, the degree of category confusion, spatial consistency, and data accuracy. The results show that: (1) the land composition descriptions of the different datasets are consistent. The study area is dominated by forest and cropland, supplemented by grassland, shrubland, and other land types. (2) The correlation coefficient between datasets is between 0.905 and 0.972; the spatial consistency of datasets is good; and the high-consistency area accounts for 77.87% of the total. (3) The overall accuracy of LSV10 is the highest (83.25%), and that of GLC_FCS30 is the lowest (72.27%). The accuracy of cropland, forest, water area, and built-up land is generally high (above 85%); the accuracy of grassland, shrubland, and bare land is low (below 60%). Therefore, researchers must conduct validation for specific regions and specific land types before using the above datasets. Our findings provide a basis for selecting LULC datasets in related research on the Indochina Peninsula and a reference method for assessing the reliability of multisource LULC datasets in other regions.

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Differences in Urban Morphology between 77 Cities in China and Europe

Guo

Schlink

et al. 2022

Remote Sensing

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Urban morphology refers to the physical form of a city that is constantly transformed and updated in the process of urbanization. A valuable source of data on ‘built forms’ is modern remote sensing technology, which provides a variety of products on building footprints and heights at national, continental, and global levels. A large-scale comparison of urban morphologies is important for assessing urban development as well as its influence on urban ecology; however, this has not been well documented so far. This study includes 41 cities in China and 36 in Europe with various city sizes, population densities, and climate features. We applied 3D landscape metrics and principal component analysis (PCA) to compare the spatial aspects of the urban morphology of these cities. We found: (1) measurements of the building height, surface fluctuation, and texture directionality of urban building layouts in China are higher than those of European cities, while the latter are high-density and compact built landscapes; (2) a significant clustering phenomenon for Chinese and European cities revealed by PCA, with the former showing a much more aggregated pattern, indicating a relatively uniform morphology of urban buildings in China; (3) distinctions between cities in China and Europe are suggested by the first principal component, to which building height, surface fluctuation, building complexity, and spatial distance among buildings contribute significantly; and (4) the second principal component (mainly represented by maximum building height, surface area, volume, and shape metrics) can separate large metropolitan cities and provincial capitals from cities with lower urban population, smaller size, and slower economic development. Our results demonstrate the potential of 3D landscape metrics for measuring urban morphology. Together with a temporal analysis, these metrics are useful for quantifying how urban morphology varies in space and time on a large scale, as well as evaluating the process of urbanization.

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Accuracy Assessment of the Building Height Copernicus Data Layer: A Case Study of Bratislava, Slovakia

Cited by 3 publications

References 39 publications

Copernicus Satellite Data: Terrain Modelling with Python

Copernicus Satellite Data: Terrain Modelling with Python

Consistency and Accuracy of Four High-Resolution LULC Datasets—Indochina Peninsula Case Study

Differences in Urban Morphology between 77 Cities in China and Europe

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