ABSTRACT
Urban areas are characterized by diversity. Remote sensing provides an efficient way to quantify some aspects of this diversity. In many settings, diversity of land cover may provide a basis for characterizing the urban environment. Similarly, the diversity of urban land cover influences mass and energy fluxes through the urban environment — with direct consequences for the inhabitants. For both of these reasons, it is necessary to understand both the functional diversity of urban land cover and the resulting spectral diversity that is detected by remote sensors. Characterization of spectral properties is essential to remote sensing of any type of land cover, but is especially important in urban environments because the nature of the diversity itself contains valuable information about the structure and function of the land cover within the urban mosaic.
