Population Estimates from Orbital Data of Medium Spatial Resolution: Applications for a Brazilian Municipality

Járvis Campos, José Irineu Rangel Rigotti, Emerson Augusto Baptista, Antônio Miguel Vieira Monteiro and Ilka Afonso Reis
Additional contact information
Járvis Campos: Departamento de Demografia e Ciências Atuariais (DDCA), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Natal 59078-970, Brazil
José Irineu Rangel Rigotti: Department of Demography, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte 31270-901, Brazil
Emerson Augusto Baptista: Asian Demographic Research Institute (ADRI), Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
Antônio Miguel Vieira Monteiro: LiSS/CGOBT, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, São José dos Campos 12227-010, Brazil
Ilka Afonso Reis: ICEX, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte 31270-901, Brazil

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 9, 1-20

Abstract: In recent decades, there has been an increase in the search for more detailed information on population dynamics, given the growing demand for more sustainable economic, social, and environmental planning. The dissemination of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has contributed to the development of methodologies for the field of population estimates for small areas. To support more sustainable policies, this study aims to evaluate the capacity and contribution of the orbital images (Landsat ETM+) for the production of post-census population estimates for the municipality of Contagem, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Firstly, models were built using the average of the reflectance of the spectral bands of the Landsat 7 ETM+ for each special intra-municipal unit, called the census sector, as explanatory variables for the population density. Secondly, this study constructed models that use the reflectance and the distributed population at the level of the pixels of the images. All models were tested through internal validation procedures, external validation, and comparative analyses with post-census estimates. Internal validation presented excellent results (below 7%), while in external validation, the method at the level of the pixels presented consistent results, below 1% relative error. These results provide useful clues and can help policymakers in the development of more sustainable and effective public policies, insofar as population estimates are extremely important for the planning of any society.

Keywords: remote sensing; dasymetric mapping; population estimates; small areas; Brazil; sustainable development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/9/3565/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/9/3565/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:9:p:3565-:d:351209

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().