Urban System Dynamics Across the Rural–Urban Gradient

Session Title: 

Urban system dynamics across the rural–urban gradient

Organized by:

Focus:

Urbanization is one of the most transformative processes on Earth, with many people living in “rurban” transition zones between urban and rural areas. These spaces are characterized by rapid land-use change, social transformation, and environmental complexity. At the same time, disturbances originating in rural areas, such as natural hazards, ecosystem degradation, resource depletion, extractive activities, and climate-related impacts, can increasingly affect the urban core. This session aims to highlight remote sensing tools and methods to understand these dynamics and interactions along the urban–rural gradient.
We seek to explore how multi-scale, multi-sensor Earth Observation (EO) data can capture the morphology, land-cover heterogeneity, and socio-ecological processes shaping rurban transitions and their implications for both rural and urban environments. 
Topics include mapping and modeling the urban–rural continuum, time-series analysis of peri-urban expansion, ecosystem and socio-economic change detection, and the integration of EO with ancillary data. 
We welcome contributions on hazard monitoring, vulnerability assessment, cascading impact analysis, and resilience assessment, where innovative computational approaches, open-source geospatial environments, and AI/ML-based techniques are encouraged.