Deriving information from space for urban environmental risk management

The ongoing practice of applying Earth Observation (EO) technology shows great
potential of mapping every aspect of urbanization, hence understanding the inter-
actions, resilience and risks at the human-environment interface. However, deriving
information regarding the two basic components of risk assessment, exposure and
vulnerability, is subject to uncertainty and limited scientic validity. In this pres-
entation, I will show, rst of all, how environmental variables are mapped in general
and how information can be uncertain due to problems of sampling and scale of
the target geographic patterns, which are not discussed suciently these days. I will
then continue with presenting the evolution of techniques used to map the other
component, vulnerability, by using EO based datasets. I will especially focus on the
experience in mapping urban poverty to the Global South to showcase how the re-
mote sensing community has been trying to derive knowledge about socioeconomic
status, where I argue that the ongoing practice of mapping socioeconomic status
may lead to problems of reduced interpretability and limited scientic validity. is
argument is then followed by suggested alternatives to avoid these problems as well
as inform practical actions for risk management.

Further information:
www.geographie.uni-bayreuth.de/de/Veranstaltungen/GIB-Lecture-Series/index.html