ChinaUIS: National-Scale Urban Informal Settlements Mapping in Chinese Major Cities

Urban Informal Settlements (UIS) denote densely populated areas, which often exhibit a mixture of rural and urban, and are characterized by insufficient urban infrastructure standards. However, UIS mapping products for major cities in China are lacking. To fill this gap, we developed a methodology incorporating very high spatial resolution remote sensing images close to 2013 and 2021 of 37 Chinese megacities and deep learning-based models to map UIS areas (namely the ChinaUIS product). The ChinaUIS product can help promote a new understanding of urban and rural development in major cities of China and facilitate applications such as urban poverty estimation, urban\rural planning, and urban sustainability. The ChinaUIS product is free to use for non-commercial forms including scientific research and science promotion under proper citation.