Sentinel-2 Satellite Imagery based Population Estimation Strategies at FabSpace 2.0 Lab Darmstadt

This paper elaborates the Sentinel-2 image processing approaches used for the estimation of the population of an area of interest at Image CLEF Remote 2017 lab by the FabSpace 2.0 Darmstadt team. The task is introduced by Image CLEF Lab as a new pilot task in 2017 (Remote) which aims at exploring Copernicus Earth Observation data (i.e. Sentinel-2 satellite imagery) in order to estimate the population of an area of interest [2]. Therefore, the pilot task is focusing on mapping human settlement to estimate population using Sentinel-2 data for humanitarian activities and/or establishing communication infrastructure etc. Human societies and civilizations have been expanding with consequent impact throughout the decades. The expansion of human societies has wider implication in relation to the physical environment and other natural resources. Therefore, it could be a fundamental potential of technological innovation in supporting human activities and sufferings throughout mapping diverse human societies in the world. Although there exist a lot of previous studies used commercial and non-commercial high to moderate resolution satellite imagery for the estimation of the population, this study will investigate the potential of the new Sentinel-2 European satellites. They provide data with 10 m resolution imagery for free, thanks to the Copernicus open data policy for all imagery in five days interval. Thus the use of Sentinel-2 data to develop any new application i.e. population estimation can be cost effective and is reasonably accurate. Keyword: Sentinel-2, Population Estimation, Classification, Lusaka, Uganda