Hyperspectral airborne remote sensing for multi-temporal assessment about urban changes in Naples area

The city of Naples, one of the major urban centers Southern Italy, is located along the coastline at about 200 South of Rome. The city was founded in VII century b.C. It is characterized by an endless city planning continuity and so it is difficult to trace its regular urban development. Monitoring the urban changes the researchers of IIA-CNR used multispectral images by MIVIS sensor. MIVIS (Multispectral Infrared Visible Imaging Spectrometer) airborne hyperspectral sensors is a modular instrument composed of 4 spectrometers, which simultaneously collect radiation coming from the Earth's surface in 102 bands (Visible, Near-InfraRed, Mid-InfraRed and Thermal-InfraRed). The MIVIS hyperspectral data, covering the Naples city were collected during two airborne campaigns carried out: on November 7th 1995, 10:00 (local time), at an altitude of 1500 m. C a.s.l., thus achieving a ground resolution of 3 m/pixels and on July 21st 2004, 11:00 (local time) at an altitude of 2500 m. a.s.l. (5 m/pixel ground resolution). Monitoring the harbor zone a new airborne campaign carried out on August 25th 2004, 10:00 (local time), at an altitude of 1500 m. a.s.l., a ground resolution of 3 m/pixels. Our aim is to investigate, to detect and map the dynamic evolutions (buildings, roads, vegetation, and harbour zone) that have been occurred to the landforms. To highlight the urban changes identified in the MIVIS images caused to natural and anthropogenic factors at various temporal spatial scales, different hyperspectral data processing procedures were used.