ASSESSMENT AND MAPPING OF URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY USING REMOTE SENSING AND GEOSPATIAL DATA

Urban environmental management is of profound importance due to increasing urban development alongside the need to develop resilient cities and sustainable urbanization strategies. Spatial explicit urban environmental quality indices can provide policy makers and the public with valuable information for urban planning and policy formation. The aim of this study is the development of a multi-component urban environmental quality index for the metropolitan area of Thessaloniki. The approach was designed to be robust and easily transferred across cities with similar characteristics. Land Surface Temperature (LST) was estimated based on multi-seasonal Landsat-8 images, while Fractional Vegetation Cover (FVC) was derived from fused Sentinel-2 images and validated using WorldView-2 very high spatial resolution imagery. In addition, several geospatial layers related to atmospheric pollution, petroleum refineries, noise pollution, urban density and distance to green infrastructures were processed within GIS environment and integrated with the satellite extracted information. A multi-criteria Analytical Hierarchical Approach (AHP) was used for integrating the sub-criteria to a final urban environmental quality index using weights from expert knowledge and literature review. The results identified extended areas in the western part of the study region as well as several hot spots in the eastern part, that local planners should develop and implement actions for improving living conditions of residents. Overall, the method proved to be viable and flexible and its application can be expanded to similar Mediterranean cities.