Aim
Aim of this course is to provide you with an overview on geographic processes of urbanization, the related demographic and structural changes of cities, and data analyses methods using remote sensing data for applications in urban geography.
Content
Humankind is within its largest migration ever: from rural areas into cities. The drivers of this global process of urbanization from demographic to economic and the related structural changes cities are facing will be discussed in this course. Remote sensing is one crucial data source in this dynamic transformation and its products are highly relevant for urban planning, as well as environmental management. Within this course different approaches and techniques are covered focusing on deriving relevant information about urbanized areas on different levels of detail. Uni-temporal-, multi-temporal-, and time series based image classification, segmentation, the analyses of point patterns, GIS analyses to assess spatial context and dependencies, as well as analyses in the 3D domain will be addressed in this course. This will be done providing and discussing example applications from different regions globally (e.g. urban sprawl analysis of megacities, the development of new dimensions of urban landscapes such as mega-regions, the rearrangement of business districts within the urban landscape, etc.). You will learn what capabilities Earth observation data, methods and products have for urban research and applications and how to design remote sensing based urban analysis, how to avoid caveats, troubleshoot errors and interpret the results.
General Course News and Updates
EAGLE MSc Defense: Evaluating Surface Urban Heat Islands in Bavarian Cities through a Multi-Variable Analysis
On July 07, 2026, Farimah Abdolzadeh will present her Master Thesis on " Evaluating Surface Urban Heat Islands in Bavarian Cities through a Multi-Variable Analysis " at 13:00 at the seminar room 3 in John-Skilton-Str. 4a. From the abstract: Surface Urban Heat Island...
EAGLE Internship Presentation: ” Global Water Detection and Thermal UAV Data Analysis”
On July 14, 2026, Elena Scholz will present her internship results on " Global Water Detection and Thermal UAV Data Analysis" at 12:00 in seminar room 3, John-Skilton-Str. 4a. From the abstract: Internship 1 - DLR-DFD “Watersecurity and Coastal Systems” The majority...
EAGLE Internship Presentation: Svalbard
On July 07, 2026, Aoibhin Murphy and Marlene Sehrbrock will present her internship results on " Svalbard" at 12:00 in seminar room 3, John-Skilton-Str. 4a. From the abstract: Using thermal and RGB imagery collected via UAVs, we investigated the potential of thermal...
EAGLE MSc Defense: Machine Learning Inference of Building Basement Presence Using Street-Level Imagery and Multi-Source Geospatial Attributes: A Case Study of Mannheim, Germany
On July 01, 2026, Gökçe Yağmur Özcan will present her Master Thesis on " Machine Learning Inference of Building Basement Presence Using Street-Level Imagery and Multi-Source Geospatial Attributes: A Case Study of Mannheim, Germany " at 11:00 at the EORC...
EireR R package: unified gateway to Irish geospatial data
Anyone who's tried to do geospatial work across the whole island of Ireland knows the headache. Ireland is one island geographically, but it's split across two jurisdictions, the Republic and Northern Ireland, and each one runs its own data infrastructure. Different...
Impact of agrophotovoltaic facilities – an R package
There's a new R package on the block, and it's solving a problem that sounds simple until you actually try to do it: how do you tell whether putting solar panels over a farm field is good or bad for the soil and the crops around them? Marlene, one of our EAGLE...
Successful MSc Defense by Anna Bischof
We congratulate Anna Bischof on the successful defense of her MSc thesis, "Feasibility of Unoccupied Aerial System-Based Active Fire Monitoring in African Savannas." Anna's research addressed one of the key challenges in fire ecology and remote sensing: understanding...
EAGLE Internship Presentation: Fire and drought research in savanna ecosystems – Kruger National Park
On June 16, 2026, Sebastian Rothaug and Clemens Schömig will present their internship results on " Fire and drought research in savanna ecosystems – Kruger National Park" at 12:00 PM in seminar room 3, John-Skilton-Str. 4a. From the abstract: Climate change is...
EAGLE MSc Defense: Feasibility of Unoccupied Aerial System-Based Active Fire Monitoring in African Savannas
On June 09, 2026, Anna Bischof will present her Master Thesis on " Feasibility of Unoccupied Aerial System-Based Active Fire Monitoring in African Savannas" at 12:00 in seminar room 3, John-Skilton-Str. 4a. From the abstract: Fire is a fundamental Earth system process...
EAGLE Innolab Presentation: Temporal Analysis of Lava Dome Morphology and Crevasse Development at Great Sitkin Volcano
On June 02, 2026, Daniel Voellner will present his Innolab results on " Temporal Analysis of Lava Dome Morphology and Crevasse Development at Great Sitkin Volcano" at 12:00 in seminar room 3, John-Skilton-Str. 4a. title of presentation: From the abstract: Volcanic...