Abstract for presentation at The 13th Australasian Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Conference

Advances in both airborne and spaceborne remote sensing systems have provided a range of tools for monitoring and managing human settlements. In particular the availability of very high spatial resolution satellite systems has dramatically increased access to high quality two-dimensional spatial information, while laser profilers and interferometric synthetic aperture radar have allowed acquisition of the third dimension. As human settlements can undergo rapid change either by unplanned growth or disaster impact, the return period of a few days to weeks means that change can be easily and rapidly assessed. In this paper the properties of systems and their acquired data, including high resolution satellite systems, hyperspectral sensors, synthetic aperture radar and laser profilers will be discussed with examples of their application related to population change, infrastructure planning and disaster monitoring. The paper concludes with an overview of future developments.