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Quality of Life Assessement in Urban Environment Using Satellite Images and

Urban Audit Socio-Economic Data

Conference Paper · September 2011

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 Quality of Life Assessement in Urban
Environment Using Satellite Images and
Urban Audit Socio-Economic Data
M.I.Vlad,
Romanian Space Agency, Mendeleev Str.21-25, Bucharest, Romania and
University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography, N.Balcescu Str.1, Bucharest, Romania
I.Nedelcu,
Romanian Space Agency, Mendeleev Str.21-25, Bucharest, Romania
Abstract— The study on the quality of life ( QoL) in urban
areas is gaining interest from a variety of disciplines such as
planning, geography, sociology, economics, psychology,
political science, marketing, an is becoming an important tool
for urban planning and management. At present, there is great
deal of ambiguity and controversy on the concept of QoL, its
elements and indicators.
This paper focuses on the development of a methodology for
integrating Landsat TM, and Urban Atlas data with Urban
Audit socio-economic data in a GIS framework, and applies the
methodology to assess the quality of life in Braila, a 200 000
people city, situated in eastern Romania and port on the
Danube river.
As for the methodology, vegetation fraction, impervious
surface and land surface temperature are derived from
Landsat TM+ image and Urban Atlas data as environmental
indicators, while density of the population, number of
unemployment and other variables are extracted from the
Urban Audit data as socioeconomic indicators.
Urban Audit concept is designed to measure the quality of
life in urban environment through the use of a simple set of
urban indicators and a common methodology.
Vegetation and urban land use are important indicators of
quality of life, with high greeness and low percentage of urban
use being of higher quality. Greeness relates to vegetation and
can be measured using vegetation indices such as NDVI
(normalized difference vegetation index) derived from satellite
images. Impervious surface indicators can be derived from
Urban Atlas data. The surface temperature can be used as an
indicator of environmental quality. Thermal infrared band of
satellite images like the ones coming from the Landsat satellite
can be a good data source to estimate Earth surface
temperature.
I. INTRODUCTION
The concept quality of life is used to describe the
wellbeing of the citizens of an urban area, that is to say how
people feel about the environment and the society in which
they live. This concept is gaining interest from a variety of
disciplines such as planning, geography, sociology,
economics, psychology, political science, marketing and
management, and is becoming an important tool for policy
evaluation, urban planning and management. So, this
concept refers to factors that make a life better. It represents
more than private “living standards” and refers to all the
elements of the conditions in which people, namely, all their
needs and requirements. We often use this concept to
measure and evaluate people’s well-being, satisfaction and
happiness.
Quality of life demands, amongst other things, available
and accessible social and public infrastructure to satisfy the
needs of those concerned in it and affected by it as well as
an environment free of serious deterioration or pollution.
Such conditions are not generally met in our cities , since a
large part of the inhabitants live in dwellings and
neighbourhoods lacking basic facilities and services.
As from the sociologic point of view, quality of life
reflects both objective and subjective elements [1]. For
example, employment is an objective criterion, however
how satisfied people are about their work is clearly
subjective. On a economic analysis regarding quality of life
it is taking into account the living standard as being the
general level of prosperity, comfort, of material goods and
of needs available to a certain socio-economic class from a
certain geographical area. When talking about the standard
of life, we consider things that are easy to quantify.
For defining quality of life, a number of indicators are
commonly used representing the most important aspects in
the life of a person, such as education, employment or the
state of the physical environment.
This study focuses on quality of life analysis using Urban
Audit socio-economic statistical data and environmental
indicators derived from Landasat TM image on Braila, a
200000 inhabitants city, situated on south-eastern Romania.
Remotely sensed imagery and census data are two
essential data sources for urban analyses [2]. Remote
sensing data effectively record the physical properties of the Observation System Data Center. Also, Urban Atlas data for
environment, provide large quantities of timely and accurate Braila city are taken into account, for impervious surfaces.
spatial information. Census data offer a wide range of
TABLE 1. STRUCTURE OF BRAILA URBAN AUDIT STATISTICS FOR THE PRESENT
demographic and socio-economic information. STUDY
STATISTICAL INDICATOR
II. URBAN AUDIT PROJECT IN ROMANIA FIELD
1.1 demography population ( 215316 inhab.)
2 density of the population (6,49
Urban Audit is a response to growing demand for an inhab./km²)
assessment of the quality of life in European towns/cities, 3 number of dwellings (78394)
where a significant proportion of European Union citizens 2.4 social aspects number of homeless persons
live. The Urban Audit is a joint effort by the Directorate- 5 average price per m² for an
General for Regional Policy (DG REGIO) and Eurostat to apartment/house
provide reliable and comparative information on selected 6 natural increase - (572)
urban areas in Member States of the European Union and 3.7 economic aspects number of unemployed (820)
persons
the Candidate Countries [3].
8 unemployment rate
In order to participate to this project, the Romanian
9 gross domestic product of city
National Institute of Statistics developed Urban Audit 4.10 training and students in higher education (10203
project in cooperation with territorial statistic offices education students)
corresponding to regions or counties the selected cities 5.12 environment total land area (km²) (43,92)
belong to. proportion of the area in green space
14 Romanian cities are included in the Urban Audit ( km²) (16%)
project, of which 4 are large and 10 are of medium size : 6.13 information society number of households with a
Bucuresti, Cluj-Napoca, Timisoara, Craiova, Braila, Oradea, computer
Bacau, Arad, Sibiu, Targu Mures, Piatra Neamt, Calarasi, 14 percentage of households with
internet access at home
Giurgiu, Alba Iulia [3].
7.15 culture number of museums (2)
The Urban Audit data collection provides information and
16 number of theatres (5)
comparable measurements on the different aspects of the
quality of urban life.

III. STUDY AREA B. Methodology

Braila city, 45°16′09.1″N 27°57′26.9″E , the
administrative capital of Braila County, South-East Region
of Romania, spreads over an area of 43.7 km², with a
population of 216,292 inhabitants. The city is located on the
Danube River and is the country's second largest port.
Accessible to small and medium-sized sea-going ships,
Braila’s economy is centred around trade, manufacturing,
construction, transport and storage and services. Important
industries include food and beverages, clothing, means of
naval transport and machinery and equipment.
III. DATESET AND METHODOLOGY
A. Dataset
As for the data sets used in this research were selected
2007 Urban Audit statistical data on Braila and Landsat TM
image. The statistical data contain information about one or
more indicators from each of the 9 statistical fields included
in Urban Audit – Methodological Handbook , as shown in
table 1.
Landsat TM image dated on 26.05.2007 was used in this
research. Atmospheric conditions were clear at the time of
image acquisition, and the image was aquired through the
United States Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resource
As greenness relates to vegetation, it will be measured
using vegetation indices such as NDVI (normalized
difference vegetation index). NDVI was developed by
Rouse et.al. (1974) and currently is one of the most common
used band indices for detection of vegetated areas. The
NDVI is calculated as:
(NIR – R)/(NIR+R) (1)
where NIR and R are Near Infrared and visible Red bands of
a satellite imagery.
High and low vegetation presented in figure 2 can be
explained on land use categories, using Corine Land Cover,
as shown in figure 3.
Land surface temperature can provide important
information about the physical proprieties and climate which
plays an important role in many environmental processes
and at the same time is an important factor affecting human
comfort. High surface temperature is regarded undesirable
by most people, so that it can be used as an indicator of
environmental quality [2].
Nowadays, satellite imageries are an important tool for
monitoring LULC changes because of the availability of
medium to high spatial resolution (0.60 – 30 meters), wide
range spectral region from visible to infrared and frequent
temporal resolution [4]. Even if it’s less utilized because of
the low resolution , the 120 m resolution Landsat Thematic
Mapper (TM) thermal infrared band 6 provides the source Impervious surfaces are defined as any material that water
to extract surface temperature ( fig. 1). cannot infiltrate and are associated with human activities
and habitation through construction of transportation and
buildings [6]. Impervious surfaces are mainly artificial
structures - such as pavements (roads, sidewalks, driveways
and parking lots) that are covered by impenetrable materials
such as asphalt, concrete, brick, and stone-and rooftops.
Soils compacted by urban development are also highly
impervious.
Since 1970s, many methods have been developed for
mapping impervious surfaces with different spatial
Fig. 1. Thermal band of Landsat 6 TM of the study area.
resolution such as IKONOS and QuickBird, medium spatial
To estimate the thermal condition of land surface it would resolution such as Landsat TM and Terra ASTER [6].
be useful to correlate this variable with CLC pattern. This In the present study, it is implied European Urban Atlas
way it can be seen how land surface temperature varies service, which offer a high resolution land use map of urban
among different CLC types (fig. 5). The following areas. Within Urban Atlas product features are used Earth
procedure was carried out to derive the surface temperature, Observation Data with 2.5 m spatial resolution multispectral
generate the temperature color map and analyze the data. or pansharpened (multispectral merged with panchromatic)
Conversion of the Digital Number (DN) to Spectral data, topographic maps at a scale 1:50000, geometric
Radiance (Lλ) : the spectral radiance (Lλ) is calculated using resolution 1 : 10000 , MinMU = 0.25 ha [7].
the following equation [5]. The Urban Atlas - a land use change monitoring product –
offers a sound basis for spatial statistic calculations and the
revision of urban plans. Urban planners, politicians,
(2) environmentalists and other public stakeholders can make
use of this in the planning and management of cities [8].
- QCALMIN = 1, QCALMAX = 255 and QCAL =
For Braila area are represented impervious surface
Digital Number.
classes as : continuous urban fabric (fig.6), which includes
- The LMINλ and LMAXλ are the spectral radiances for
an average degree of soil sealing more than 80 % with
band 6 at digital numbers 1 and 255 respectively.
buildings, roads, sealed areas, non-linear areas of vegetation
Conversion of the Spectral Radiance to Temperature :
and bare soil are exceptional [7]. Continuous urban fabric
T = K2 / ln(K1 / Lλ + 1)
use has predominant residential use : single family houses or
- T = Effective at-satellite temperature in Kelvin
high rise dwellings, city centre or suburb, included are
- K1 = Calibration constant 1 (watts/meter
downtown areas and city centres, central business districts.
squared*ster*µm)
Discountinuous urban fabric (fig.6) has an average degree
- K2 = Calibration 2 (Kelvin)
of soil sealing between 50 and 80 % and includes residential
- Lλ = Spectral radiance (watts/meter
buildings, roads and other artificially surfaced areas [7].
squared*ster*µm)
Industrial, commercial, public, military, private and
transport units.(fig.6) At least 30% of the ground is covered
by artificial surfaces. More than 50% of those artificial
surfaces are occupied by buildings and / or artificial
structures with non-residential use, i.e. industrial,
commercial or transport related uses are dominant (concrete,
asphalt, tar, macadam, tarmac or otherwise stabilised
surface, e.g. compacted soil, devoid of vegetation [7].
Other roads and associated land. Roads, crossings,
Fig. 2. NDVI map Fig. 3. Braila Corine Land intersections and parking, includs roundabouts, sealed areas
Cover with “road surface”.
Surface temperature distribution of the study area
Railways and associated land. Railroad facilities includs
25
stations, cargo stations and service areas [7].
Surface temperature o C

20

15

10

0
Continuous Green urban Water courses Industrial or Non-irigated
urban fabric areas commercial land
units
Land cover type

Fig 4. Braila land surface Fig 5. Surface temperature

temperature variation

Fig. 6. Impervious surface classes

 International Journal of Remote Sensing, Vol.28, No.2, 20 January 2007,
pp.249-267
IV. RESULTS AND DISSCUSION [ 3] European Commision, “Urban Audit – Mrthodological Handbook,
2004 edition, Luxembourg.
[4] S. Dontree, “Relation of Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Land
High vegetation corresponds to green urban areas which Use/Land Cover (LULC) from Remotely Sensed Data in Chiang Mai –
are portions “with vegetation within urban fabric, which Lamphun Basin “paper presented for SEAGA, Hanoi, 23-26 November
includes parks and cemeteries with vegetation, mansions 2010
[5] USGS, Landsat 7 Science Data User’s Handbook, 2001
and their grounds” [9] and low vegetation stands for
[ 6] L. Dengsheng, E.Moran, S.,Hetrick, „Detection of impervious
pastures “Lands, which are permanently used (at least 5 surface change with multitemporal Landsat images in an urban-rural
years) for fodder production. Includes natural or sown frontier, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 66, 2011,
herbaceous species, unimproved or lightly improved pp. 298-306
[7] S. Meirich, GSE Land Consortium, GSE Land Information Services,
meadows and grazed or mechanically harvested meadows”
“Mapping Guide for a European Urban Atlas”, 2008
[9]. [8] http://www.gmesgseland.info/com/promo/200709_EuropUrbAtlas.pdf
In Romania, within the 319 urban settlements, where [9] M. Bossard, J. Feranec and J. Otahel, “CORINE land cover technical
55.2% of the population are living, it was registered a guide “, 2000, European Environment Agency
[10] M.I. Vlad, D.Bratasanu, “Quality of life assessment based on
decrease of the green areas in the last decades, as a
spatial and temporal analysis of the vegetation area derived from satellite
consequence of the permanent stretching of the built space. imges”, unpublished.
As for these, the medium green space area in Romania is 18 [11] T.T.Van, “Relationship between surface temperature and land
square km/resident, whereas in Europe is 25 square cover types using thermal infrared remote sensing, in case of Hochiminh
city”, The Sixteenth Workshop of OMISAR on the Application of Satellite
km/resident [8]. As the World Health Organization rate is 50
Data, 1-4 November, 2005, Vietnam
square meter of green area/resident and the U.E. standards
are of 26 square meter/resident, our country doesn’t dispose
of the minimum necessary of green areas.
Braila, a 4392 km² city has 2.78 km² of green areas and
215316 inhabitants, thus, the average square metre/resident
being of 12.
As for the land surface temperature, taking into account
that the image was purchased at the end of May, the highest
temperatures are registered in continuous urban fabric area,
industrial zones ( 23º) due to the aluminium roof material
plus the thermal energy from production activity. The roof
and asphalt makes the reflectivity occur and it causes surface
temperature and overall ambient air temperature in urban
area to rise [11]. The areas with temperature between ( 19 ºC
and 20 ºC ) in green and yellow are green areas, pastures,
non-irigated land and water courses ( fig. 4). The relationship
between surface temperature and land cover types is shown
in figure 5.
More than half of Braila total land area is covered by
impervious surfaces which induce raise air temperature,
producing urban heat island. The warm runoff from
impervious surfaces reduces dissolved oxygen in stream
water, making life difficult, mostrly in summer. As
impervious surfaces lead to increased temperature, they also
contribute to worsened air quality.
The socio-economic point of view, as shown in table 1,
disclose certain threats as population ageing and decline, as a
result of the negative natural increase, high unemployment
revealed by an unemployment rate of 3,9 %, which is 0,2%
less of the national level unemployment rate (4,1%).

REFERENCES

[1] M. Stathopoulou, S. Iacovides and C. Cartalis, “Quality of life in

metropolitan Athens using satellite and census data : comparison between
1991 and 2001” 2nd International Conference on Countermeasures to Urban
Heat Islands, Berkeley, California, September 2009.
[2] G. Li and Q. Weng, “Measuring the quality of life in city of
Indianapolis by integration of remote sensing and census data”,

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