Large disagreements in estimates of urban land across scales and their implications

Chakraborty Tc (), Zander S. Venter, Matthias Demuzere, Wenfeng Zhan, Jing Gao, Lei Zhao and Yun Qian
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Chakraborty Tc: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Zander S. Venter: Norwegian Institute for Nature Research - NINA
Matthias Demuzere: B-Kode VOF
Wenfeng Zhan: Nanjing University
Jing Gao: University of Delaware
Lei Zhao: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Yun Qian: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Abstract Improvements in high-resolution satellite remote sensing and computational advancements have sped up the development of global datasets that delineate urban land, crucial for understanding climate risks in our increasingly urbanizing world. Here, we analyze urban land cover patterns across spatiotemporal scales from several such current-generation products. While all the datasets show a rapidly urbanizing world, with global urban land nearly tripling between 1985 and 2015, there are substantial discrepancies in urban land area estimates among the products influenced by scale, differing urban definitions, and methodologies. We discuss the implications of these discrepancies for several use cases, including for monitoring urban climate hazards and for modeling urbanization-induced impacts on weather and climate from regional to global scales. Our results demonstrate the importance of choosing fit-for-purpose datasets for examining specific aspects of historical, present, and future urbanization with implications for sustainable development, resource allocation, and quantification of climate impacts.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-52241-5

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