Human settlement and infrastructure monitoring with hyperspectral imaging

This paper reviews in detail the contributions of hyperspectral imaging to the topic of urban remote sensing. Hyperspectral imaging is traditionally connected to the spectral characterization of surface materials. Moreover, urban areas are characterized by a very complex geometrical structure, which requires either very high spatial resolution or complex unmixing procedures based on linear and non-linear mixing models. Non-linear unmixing and material mapping using both spectral and spatial features are therefore two important topics when using hyperspectral imaging to monitor human settlements and infrastructures. Finally, even when no specific material and or urban element is sought, the mixture of artificial (as opposed to natural) materials in human settlements can be used to delineate their extents, with excellent results with respect to those obtained by multispectral optical sensors with the same spatial resolution.