A Fuzzy Logic Approach to Urban Land-Use Mapping

The growth of cities represents huge problems for modern societies. Monitoring, analysing and modelling the urban dynamic call for detailed mapping of urban land-use. Traditionally, urban land-use mapping is based on orthophotos and satellite images, but deriving land-use from remote-sensing alone is not satisfactory. The Danish Building & Dwelling Register is a database containing detailed information like year of construction, use, area etc. Therefore, this database provides a useful foundation for urban land-use mapping. To be able to track urban land-use changes over time, we have chosen square cells (100m x 100m) as basic mapping units. Generally, land cover and land-use mapping are based on crisp classification, but in the current project we have applied a fuzzy modeling approach to land-use mapping. Fuzzy classification offers a better choice in urban land-use mapping, because it can indicate the primary, secondary etc. land-use simultaneously. This will offer more meaningful information for planners and a more detailed understanding of the land-use patterns. Based on these principles, a nation wide urban land-use database for the year 1997 is established.