A new way to show exactly how much the city of Houston has changed in the last two decades gives a dramatic visual record of the city’s growth in the 21st century.
Instead of the conventional practice of collecting data on housing starts and real estate parcels to track urban growth, this new research takes advantage of supercomputing, artificial intelligence, and, most importantly, a constellation of satellites that have been capturing images of the Greater Houston area from 438 miles above Earth for decades.
“Seeing these maps in motion really helps to visualize what lies behind the numbers on Houston’s dramatic population growth,” says Chris Hakkenberg, a scholar at the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University.
“Looking across the space, we see whole ecosystems of highways and commercial real estate, retail, and residential neighborhoods emerge upon the landscape in rapid succession.”
The technique documents changes in Houston’s land cover with a series of GIFs dating back to the late 20th century. The visualization shows not just where the city is growing and when, but how fast and at what densities of urban cover. The data product is unique for its simultaneous fine resolution and vast extent in space and time. All data products are freely available on the Kinder Institute’s Urban Data Platform (UDP).
Hakkenberg was especially interested in documenting how the conversion of 800 square miles of farms, wetlands, and forests to impervious surfaces in the last 21 years can exacerbate the effects of the colossal rainfall events the city has experienced in recent years. In all, 20% of these newly converted lands fell within the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s 100-year flood plain; 14% were within federally recognized wetland habitat.
“Houston’s dramatic growth is a point of pride for this diverse and dynamic city,” Hakkenberg says. “However, if the past is prologue to the future, then the city should be especially concerned that unbridled development, especially in flood plains and wetlands, could exacerbate potentially catastrophic flooding risks in an increasingly unstable climate future.”
Hakkenberg says rapid and vast urbanization coupled with more frequent and intense hurricanes could have devastating consequences, especially for the city’s most vulnerable residents.
“Planning for these contingencies will, at the regional scale, require a concerted effort to make sure that prevention and post-disaster recovery are included in future development plans,” he says.
The tool is designed so that urban planners and public policymakers can make informed choices to prepare for and recover from disasters, Hakkenberg says.
“I hope these advances in remote sensing and machine learning image interpretation will provide planners and policymakers access to the state-of-the-art data and tools they’ll need to make informed and life-saving choices.”
A paper in International Journal of Remote Sensing describes the methodology.
Funding for the research came from the Houston Endowment, the Kinder Institute, and the Rice Academy of Fellows. The full GIS map time series is freely accessible on the Kinder Institute’s UDP.
Related Books
Climate Adaptation Finance and Investment in California
by Jesse M. Keenan
This book serves as a guide for local governments and private enterprises as they navigate the unchartered waters of investing in climate change adaptation and resilience. This book serves not only as a resource guide for identifying potential funding sources but also as a roadmap for asset management and public finance processes. It highlights practical synergies between funding mechanisms, as well as the conflicts that may arise between varying interests and strategies. While the main focus of this work is on the State of California, this book offers broader insights for how states, local governments and private enterprises can take those critical first steps in investing in society’s collective adaptation to climate change. Available On Amazon
Nature-Based Solutions to Climate Change Adaptation in Urban Areas: Linkages between Science, Policy and Practice
by Nadja Kabisch, Horst Korn, Jutta Stadler, Aletta Bonn
This open access book brings together research findings and experiences from science, policy and practice to highlight and debate the importance of nature-based solutions to climate change adaptation in urban areas. Emphasis is given to the potential of nature-based approaches to create multiple-benefits for society.
The expert contributions present recommendations for creating synergies between ongoing policy processes, scientific programmes and practical implementation of climate change and nature conservation measures in global urban areas. Available On Amazon
A Critical Approach to Climate Change Adaptation: Discourses, Policies and Practices
by Silja Klepp, Libertad Chavez-Rodriguez
This edited volume brings together critical research on climate change adaptation discourses, policies, and practices from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Drawing on examples from countries including Colombia, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Russia, Tanzania, Indonesia, and the Pacific Islands, the chapters describe how adaptation measures are interpreted, transformed, and implemented at grassroots level and how these measures are changing or interfering with power relations, legal pluralismm and local (ecological) knowledge. As a whole, the book challenges established perspectives of climate change adaptation by taking into account issues of cultural diversity, environmental justicem and human rights, as well as feminist or intersectional approaches. This innovative approach allows for analyses of the new configurations of knowledge and power that are evolving in the name of climate change adaptation. Available On Amazon
From The Publisher:
Purchases on Amazon go to defray the cost of bringing you InnerSelf.comelf.com, MightyNatural.com, and ClimateImpactNews.com at no cost and without advertisers that track your browsing habits. Even if you click on a link but don't buy these selected products, anything else you buy in that same visit on Amazon pays us a small commission. There is no additional cost to you, so please contribute to the effort. You can also use this link to use to Amazon at any time so you can help support our efforts.
