Introduction

BUNTUS (Built-up, Nighttime Light, and Travel time for Urban Size) uses remote sensing techniques to delineate urban boundaries. The development of this algorithm was the first step in a study of the relationship between urbanisation and trends in fossil fuel use. Future work will focus on the application of the algorithm to problems like the energy efficiency of cities as a function of size and development, relationships with other pollutants, and the possible role of different urban forms in these trajectories.

Methodology

BUNTUS (Built-up, Nighttime Light, and Travel time for Urban Size) uses remote sensing techniques to delineate urban boundaries. The BUNTUS algorithm is part of a larger study of the role of urbanisation in changing fossil fuel emissions. The method combines estimates of land cover, nighttime lights, and travel times to classify contiguous urban areas. The method is automatic, global, and uses data sets with enough duration to establish trends. Thus, this approach is capable of describing spatial distributions and giving detailed information of urban extents. We demonstrate the method with examples from Brisbane, Australia, Melbourne, Australia, and Beijing, China. The new method meets the criteria for studying overall trends in urban emissions. However, considering our definition of the urban area, BUNTUS boundaries can be used for other kinds of urban studies and trends.BUNTUS (Built-up, Nighttime Light, and Travel time for Urban Size) uses remote sensing techniques to delineate urban boundaries. The BUNTUS algorithm is part of a larger study of the role of urbanisation in changing fossil fuel emissions. The method combines estimates of land cover, nighttime lights, and travel times to classify contiguous urban areas. The method is automatic, global, and uses data sets with enough duration to establish trends. Thus, this approach is capable of describing spatial distributions and giving detailed information of urban extents. We demonstrate the method with examples from Brisbane, Australia, Melbourne, Australia, and Beijing, China. The new method meets the criteria for studying overall trends in urban emissions. However, considering our definition of the urban area, BUNTUS boundaries can be used for other kinds of urban studies and trends.

Resolution

BUNTUS provides the Urban boundaries on the annual scale (from 1998 to 2018). The vector boundaries were extracted from the 30 meters resolution rasters.

Data

Initially, we are providing the urban boundaries of three cities. Gradually we will add the new boundaries and the target is the development of 100 cities boundaries.

Data Format

The city boundaries are in ESRI shapefile format.

Reference

This dataset is a supplement to http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs11242969

Data use Policy & Citations

Information on this website may be used for non-commercial purposes without restriction. We kindly ask you to acknowledge, cite, and/or reference the BUNTUS data product in an appropriate way.