Combining Google Earth historical imagery and UAV photogrammetry for urban development analysis.

Rural-urban migration often triggers additional demand for housing and infrastructural development to cater for the growing population in urban areas. Consequently, town planners and urban development authorities need to understand the urban development trend to make sustainable urban planning decisions. Yet, methods to analyse changes and trends in urban spatial development are often complex and require costly data collection. This article thus presents a simplified method to analyse the urban development trend in an area. The method integrates Google Earth (GE) historical imagery (baseline data) and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) photogrammetry (recent data) to quantify the changes over time. This approach can be applied to study the urban development trends in low-income countries with budget constraints. The method is discussed under four main headings: (1) background, (2) method details, (3) limitations, and (4) conclusion.•Google Earth historical image can be extracted with its associated world file.•The population of an area can be estimated by using average household size data and the number of residential buildings in the area.•The building height ratio can be used to ascertain if the land is being used parsimoniously.

Dataset of urban development analysis in a section of Kuje Area Council, Abuja, Nigeria.

Urban development will likely continue to increase in suburban areas to cater for the growing human population. In Nigeria, the relevant analysis of these urban developments is not well documented. This article presents spatiotemporal datasets for analysing urban developments in a suburb of Kuje, an Area Council within the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria. Data from Google Earth (GE) historical imagery of 2005 was used as a baseline for analysis and was compared with a UAV digital orthomosaic of 2019 to quantify urban developments. This data provides useful information on the status of urban development that has taken place in the Kuje suburb over 14 years. The data will be of great importance to town planners and urban development authorities for future planning, and for making informed decisions about urban development issues in the area.