Call for submissions for this urban session at IGARSS 2026

Dear colleagues.

If you are planning to attend the International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), to be held in Washington, DC between 9th to 14th August, 2026, please consider submitting your abstracts to our Community Contributed Theme focusing on monitoring global urban areas from space.

The deadline for submissions has been extended to Jan 17, 2026: https://2026.ieeeigarss.org/Papers/Submission.asp

More info about the Community Contributed Theme below:

CCT.42: Monitoring Global Urban Areas from Space
L.6: Land Applications — Urban and Built Environment
Satellite-based Earth observations (EO) offer unique capabilities for understanding the complexities of urban environments, enabling consistent, data-rich perspectives across multiple spatial and temporal scales. However, cities present distinct and interconnected analytical challenges due to spatial heterogeneity, spectral mixing, fine-scale variability, vertical structures, mixed materials, and resolution constraints that complicate conventional remote sensing approaches. Addressing these inherent limitations requires innovative approaches explicitly designed to navigate the intricacies of urban form, function, and rapid change. This session invites EO studies that advance how we observe, map, and interpret urban environments, from local to global scales, with particular emphasis on extracting reliable information and translating it into decision-relevant metrics.

We welcome research across diverse application domains, including urban heat dynamics, vegetation and green infrastructure, natural hazard and multi-hazard exposure, environmental health, social vulnerability and disparities, and detection of informal settlements within cities. Submissions should demonstrate how remote sensing can produce actionable and validated metrics that address urban-specific challenges and inform safe environment adaptation, disaster preparedness, equitable resource distribution, and evidence-based urban pl