Case Study: Land Info Worldwide Mapping achieves rapid, accurate mapping of Dubai’s 277% road network growth with Trimble eCognition

Satellite imagery and OBIA technology give new meaning to Dubai’s explosive growth

Land Info Worldwide Mapping, working with the National Geographic Society’s Urban Expeditions initiative, set out to quantify Dubai’s explosive urban growth by mapping road development from 1984–2016. The challenge was to process 26 Landsat scenes from three different satellites across a 6,475 km² area, harmonize varying sensor resolutions, and extract changing road networks as a meaningful indicator of expansion.

Using Trimble eCognition’s object-based image analysis, the team combined Landsat imagery with OpenStreetMap vectors, built adaptable rule sets and a two-tier cumulative classification workflow to identify urban, barren, vegetation and hydrology classes and isolate roads. The workflow produced seven yearly classifications and mosaics in about 3.5 hours and delivered classified road vectors and urban polygons; results show road length grew from 4,692 km in 1984 to 13,000 km in 2016—a 277% increase.

Land Info Worldwide Mapping

Chris Lowe

Director of Imagery Analysis