Urban Green Index estimation based on data collected by remote sensing for Romanian cities

Abstract

The modernization of offi cial statistics involves the use of new data sources, such as data collected through remote sensing. The document contains a description of how an urban green index, derived from the SDG 11.7 objective, was obtained for Romania's 41 county seat cities based on free data sets collected by remote sensing from the European and North American space agencies. The main result is represented by an estimate of the areas of surfaces covered with vegetation for the 40 county seat towns and the municipality of Bucharest, relative to the total surface. To estimate the area covered with vegetation, we used two data sets obtained by remote sensing, namely data provided by the MODIS mission, the TERRA satellite, and data provided by the Sentinel 2 mission from the Copernicus space program. Based on the results obtained, namely the surface area covered with vegetation, estimated in square kilometers, and the percentage of the total surface area or urban green index, we have created a national top of the county seat cities