Land Cover and Land Use Change Detection of Beijing with Textural Information from Satellite Remote Sensing Data

Information about urban land cover and land use changes concerns many groups of people, such as the local governors, urban planners, environmentalists and decision makers. They need up-to-date change information to manage the land effectively and revise development plans. A case study was conducted over Beijing, China. Two multispectral satellite images (ASTER and SPOT PAN) collected in 2001 and a hyperspectral satellite image (CHRIS-PROBA) collected in 2005 were acquired over Beijing for the research. Both spectral and spatial information were considered in change detection. The result of the change detection indicates that the local government returned some of the lands back to forests and improved the environment in four years from 2001 to 2005. It also shows the increasing ability of Beijing in solving conflicts between urban growth and environment.