Urbanes Grün und Stadtklima - Analyse von Vegetation in europäischen Großstädten / Vegetation and Urban Climate - Study of Vegetation in Large European Cities

Large cities are the centers of the modern society. These Cities not only have to provide goods and services for the daily needs for their residents, it is also important to offer vital vegetation in green spaces. Trees, bushes and ground cover (e. g. shrubs, grass) play an important role regarding urban climate. A sufficient amount of vegetation increases the well-being of the residents. In this study, 30 large cities of the EU countries Germany, France and Poland were examined for their vegetation. In a first step the urban areas were outlined, which was done on the basis of CORINE CLC data. The vegetation was calculated using optical satellite image data from Sentinel-2, all recorded in 2019. The Normalized Differentiated Vegetation Index (NDVI) was applied to that data. Positive NDVI values represent healthy vegetation; they were classified and analyzed into 10 classes. The result is a ranking of urban green vegetation fraction for these regions; the method may be applied as a template for all urban regions in the EU.