Team led by NYU’s Rumi Chunara uses satellite imagery and deep learning to reveal stark disparities in Karachi's green spaces, offering cities better tools to track and plan vital cooling spaces
A research team led by Rumi Chunara—an NYU associate professor with appointments in both the School of Global Public Health and the Tandon School of Engineering—has unveiled a new artificial intelligence (AI) system that uses satellite imagery to track urban green spaces more accurately than prior methods, critical to ensuring healthy cities.
To validate their approach, the researchers tested the system in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city where several team members are based. Karachi proved an ideal test case with its mix of dense urban areas and varying vegetation conditions.
Accepted for publication by the ACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies, the team’s analysis exposed a stark environmental divide: some areas enjoy tree-lined streets while many neighborhoods have almost no vegetation at all.