Detecting Urban Brownfields by Means of High Resolution Satellite Imagery

The international urban environmental partnerships focus on brownfields redevelopment, smart growth, sustainable transportation and land use, urban watershed management, green buildings, and solid waste recycling (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency = EPA http://www.epa.gov/swerosps/bf/accomp2.htm). The emphasis of this project is a kick-off to detect this specific land use, i.e. brownfields, and by expanding upon object-oriented classification methods. On the global level brownfields first need to be characterized within their specific urban regions in different geographical latitudes and climates. Focussing on the local level brownfields sites in their certain urban environment can be described as a specifically defined class consisting of diverse objects that need to be characterized by their form, their position and their spatial context. As they may consist of different objects such as buildings, roads and vegetation an object-oriented classification approach is applied. The brownfields sites investigated upon are located in the City of Baltimore, Maryland, as EPA selected the City of Baltimore as one of 16 federal Brownfields Showcase Communities (http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/showcase.htm).