Abstract
Residential population estimation was explored based on impervious surface coverage in Marion County, Indiana, USA. The impervious surface was developed by spectral unmixing of a Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) multispectral image. The residential impervious surface was then derived by geographic information system (GIS) overlay of residential land class and impervious surface. Regression analysis was conducted to develop population density estimation models. We found that the residential impervious surface‐based approach provided the best population density estimation result, with mean and median relative errors of 38% and 23%, respectively. An overall population estimation error of −0.97% was achieved.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the financial support of the Indiana Space Grant Consortium to Q.W., and NASA funds through Purdue University (Grant no. NGTS‐40114‐4) for a project entitled ‘Indiana Impervious Surface Mapping Initiative’.
D.L. acknowledges support of the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change, Indiana University, through the National Science Foundation (Grant 99‐06826). We also thank the two anonymous reviewers who provide many constructive suggestions in revising this paper.