China's First Monograph on Remote Sensing of Urban Green Space Published

China's rapid socio-economic development in recent years has posed increasingly serious "urban diseases" featuring decreasing urban vegetation, more impervious surfaces，aggravating urban heat island, and declining urban livability.

Urban green space, such as parks, forests, green roofs, streams, and community gardens, provides critical ecosystem services for citizens, and serves as a therapy for the "urban diseases". Recently, the Remote Sensing of Urban Green Space was published by Science Press as China’s first monograph that comprehensively studies urban vegetation from the perspective of remote sensing.

Authored by Prof. MENG Qingyan from the Aerospace Information Research Institute (AIR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the book is a result of decade efforts of Prof. Meng and his team in the field of urban green space remote sensing since 2010.

The book focuses on the evaluation of urban green space by using remote sensing technologies such as two-dimensional or three-dimensional information extraction technology, measurement technology, multi-scale perception technology, as well as an integration of multi-source data from satellites, airplanes, and near earth measurement.

The book has built a complete technical system covering multi-dimensional information extraction, green space measurement, multi-scale perception, spatial optimal allocation, along with a comprehensive urban vegetation evaluation system, and has realized quantitative measurement of urban vegetation.

Remote Sensing of Urban Green Space can be used as a reference book for urban planning, landscaping, environmental protection and urban management professionals, as well as for related majors of universities and research institutes.

Remote Sensing of Urban Green Space, which allows the study of urban vegetation from comprehensive, systematic and multi-dimensional perspectives, will play an important role in boosting environment-friendly urban development, and show an emerging direction of urban green space remote sensing.

Cover of the Remote Sensing of Urban Green Space.