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Mapping Urban Growth in Bengaluru with Historical CORONA Imagery

Project overview image

Overview

A Google Earth Engine web app that visualises high-resolution CORONA satellite imagery of Bengaluru from 1965 to study historical urban growth. Most studies of urban change use Landsat as their baseline, but CORONA's 2.75 m resolution pushes that baseline back further and reveals land-use changes that coarser imagery misses.

  • Study Area: Bengaluru, India
  • Duration: Ongoing personal project
  • Role: Solo project
  • Status: In progress

Methods & Tools

Data Sources

  • Declassified CORONA satellite imagery (1965), 2.75 m resolution
  • Landsat imagery, for baseline comparison

Processing Steps

  1. Georeferenced the historical CORONA imagery in QGIS
  2. Compared the georeferenced imagery against the standard Landsat baseline
  3. Published the imagery as an interactive web application on Google Earth Engine

Tools Used

Tool Purpose
QGIS Georeferencing historical CORONA imagery
Google Earth Engine Building and hosting the interactive web application

Key Findings

  • CORONA's 2.75 m resolution reveals land-use changes in 1960s Bengaluru that are not visible in the standard Landsat baseline
  • Shifting the historical baseline back to 1965 gives a longer view of the city's urban growth trajectory

View Web App

Other Work Samples

  • Walkability Analysis — Walkability scores for Bengaluru using NetAScore (University of Salzburg), which classifies OSM road networks for walkability and bikeability. Tools: QGIS, Python.