Satellite-based Environmental & Infrastructure Monitoring System of Smart Cities

Abstract

At present, over 40% of the world’s population lives within 100 km of the coasts. Steady increasing rates of population, the ensuing rapid urbanization and industrial development are adversely impacting the environment, ecology, socioeconomics, the daily mobility and logistics of inhabitants in these coastal mega cities. Climate change is exacerbating coastal vulnerability with plausibly more frequent and intensified cyclones, more devastating storm surges, rapid sea-level rise, and anthropogenic coastal land subsidence, all of which affects infrastructure and mobility of cities. The availability of abundant contemporary satellite based optical/multi-/hyper-spectral/radar sensors enable efficient near-real time monitoring of transportation systems and infrastructures, city dwellings, landcover, water resources, climate processes, and onset of natural hazards within and around the coastal cities. This approach is important to support the designs and operations of coastal Smart Cities including smart transportation and its safety, infrastructure security and logistics, towards alleviating vulnerability and enhancing resilience of these cities. Here we describe the strategy and present working examples for the development of a paradigm to more effectively address the sustainability of climate-stressed coastal cities. This paradigm is proposed to be integrated with other Smart City designs, including big data analytics, cloud computing, smart mobility and logistics, and natural hazards management.