Spaceborne sensors provide a variety of opportunity for human settlement monitoring under different point of view, and to tackle different environmental issues affecting on the local, regional and global scale urban areas. By providing a joint analysis of one or more human settlements in the optical, infrared and microwave frequency range, satellite sensors enable decision makers to monitor multiple aspects of the urban environment. Urban heat island, pollution, traffic, residential and commercial area planning, risk and exposure and vulnerability to natural hazards, homeland security and crisis/conflict monitoring are among the possible application of these observation techniques. Two-dimensional and three-dimensional data sets are also equally available, and algorithms to retrieve 3D information from multiple observations have been already proposed, and allow an almost continuous monitoring of the four dimensions (2D extent, height and time) of human settlements.

For this special issue, papers are solicited on the whole range of human settlement applications enabled by spaceborne observation of human settlements, from land cover/land use mapping using SAR and/or optical VHR data in urban areas, to monitoring land use/cover and environmental changes in urban areas, and 2D/3D change detection/feature extraction/data fusion for urban scene interpretation. Submissions are encouraged however in a broad range of algorithms which demonstrate substantive use of remote sensing sensors and techniques for human settlement mapping.

The IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing (J-STARS) is a quarterly publication of the Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society and the IEEE Committee on Earth Observations. Papers should address current issues and techniques in applied remote and in situ sensing, their integration, and applied modelling and information creation for understanding the Earth. Topics can include observations, derived information such as forecast data, simulated information, data assimilation and Earth information techniques to address science and engineering issues of the Earth system.

Procedure:
Prospective authors should submit their manuscripts electronically using the following web page: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jstars. Instructions for creating new user accounts, if necessary, are available on the login screen. Please indicate in your submission that the paper is intended for the Human Settlements Special Issue by selecting “Human Settlements J-STAR Special Issue” from the menu for manuscript type.

Inquiries concerning the Special Issue should be directed to the Lead Guest Editors:

Paolo Gamba
Department of Electronics, University of Pavia
Via Ferrata, 1, 27100 Pavia (Italy)
Phone: +39-0382-985781, Fax: +39-0382-422583
Email: paolo.gamba@unipv.it

Claudia Maria de Almeida
Division for Remote Sensing, National Institute for Space Research - INPE
Av. dos Astronautas, 1758 - SERE I - Room 6 ,12227-010
Sao Jose dos Campos, SP - Brazil
Phone: +55-12-3208-6428, Fax: +55-12-3208-6488
E-mail: almeida@dsr.inpe.br