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Remote Sensing for Urban Development Policies

At the 2026 Sustainable Buildings and Construction Summit Magnus Andersson, David Muthui & Reza Roodaki (Malmö University) argued that remote sensing should be a core evidence infrastructure for sustainable urban governance. Satellite derived and geospatial analysis can observe and monitor urban expansion, densification, land consumption, building form and material demand across jurisdictions and over time. A shift from two-dimensional to three-dimensional sensing and analysis provides new data to inform policies for housing, land-use efficiency, disaster exposure, public space, resource efficiency and resilient construction.

Disaster Reconstruction: Practitioner Insights Improve Outcomes

Regan Potangaroa (Auckland University of Technology - AUT), Kelvin Zuo (Massey University), Suzanne Wilkinson (AUT) explain why experience-led knowledge from the field, when triangulated with contemporaneous documentation, can constitute evidence for understanding post-disaster reconstruction systems. People working within reconstruction environments (engineers, builders, logisticians and community actors) provide crucial observations about how reconstruction systems function in practice, particularly supply chains, material flows, procurement and governance in post-disaster rebuilding. Integrating this knowledge can lead to better outcomes.