Land Use Change in Rostock, Germany since the Reunification – a Combined Approach with Satellite Data and High Resolution Aerial Images

The city of Rostock in East Germany has undergone drastic changes in the last 15 years since the reunification of Germany. To cover the spatial extent of the urban developments and the changes in land use different remote sensing sensors and image analysis techniques were used. The land use of 1989 and 1995 was determined at a 1:50.000 scale based on fused Landsat TM and SPOT satellite scenes. In 2002 a HRSC-AX flight was conducted. The land use at a scale of 1:5.000 was again visually interpreted. Sealed surfaces and the degree of sealing were determined with the help of an object oriented classification. A change analysis was performed to identify all new urban developments within these 13 years. For the mapping and monitoring of current land use changes and urban developments the digital low cost mapping system PFIFF is used to gather current information form urban “hot spots”.