The Possible Use of VHR Satellite Images in the Public Agencies in Belgium: Brussels, Ghent & Liège from Space.

The City promotion project aims at arousing the awareness and possible use of the Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite images in the public agencies and education sector. This project is presently financed by the Belgian federal Office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural affairs (OSTC). Il this purpose, a poster has been prepared showing the three main towns in Belgium _ Brussels, Ghent and Liège - and a website has been devoted to the project. The core of the cities is represented by satellite maps at 1: 5 000 scale. Ikonos panchromatic and multispectral images are merged together in order to obtain coloured images at 1 m resolution able to render the urban fabric of these old cities. Moreover small excerpts at enlarged scale (1: 3 000) show typical places and building in panchromatic mode. The excerpt selected on the famous Brussels “Grand Place” is used to illustrate the fusion process between the panchromatic (1 m) and the multispectral (4 m) images. Two small scale insets present the regional context of these three towns thanks to a natural colour composite made of Landsat 7 ETM+ images on the one hand, and a classical physical map on the other hand. Various exploitations in the classroom of this poster, and others of the same kind, are suggested on the related website (http://www.geo.ulg.ac.be/eduweb).