At the Earth Observation Research Cluster, researchers combine satellite-based observations with novel datasets to better understand how cities evolve. Among them is Richard Lemoine-Rodríguez, whose work connects urban remote sensing, geoinformatics, urban ecology, digital humanities, and natural language processing.
Linking Earth observation with urban digital traces
Richard’s research approaches cities as complex environments where physical structures and social processes are closely connected. He uses satellite imagery and text-based data to study urban morphology, heat exposure, green spaces, mobility, and social perception.
At our EORC, he contributes to the development of Geolingual Studies, a research direction that combines approaches from linguistics, digital humanities, and remote sensing. This allows him to examine cities not only through their buildings, land cover, or temperature patterns, but also through social (media) data and survey-based insights into everyday urban life.
Understanding urban form across scales
Alongside these newer data sources, Richard continues to work with core questions in urban remote sensing. His publications address spatial patterns of urban morphology, urban climate and heat islands, the cooling capacity of urban green spaces, and urban ecological integrity.
A multi-scale perspective is central to his research. Some of his studies compare hundreds of cities globally, while others focus on specific urban regions in Latin America or Europe, or on single city assessments. Across these cases, his aim is to identify both global regularities and local specificities driving the evolution of cities, considering how environmental conditions, social inequalities, and urban structures interact.
Why remote sensing and digital humanities?
For Richard, remote sensing offers a way to observe cities systematically across space and time. Yet many urban questions cannot be answered from satellite imagery alone. By combining Earth observation with social (media) data, his work seeks to understand how people develop, experience, discuss, and use the physical urban space.
Through this interdisciplinary approach, Richard contributes to a broader understanding of cities as dynamic, unequal, and deeply human environments. At our EORC, his research helps expand Earth observation beyond the mapping of surfaces, showing how satellite data and (digital) social traces can jointly reveal the changing relationships between people and their main habitat: cities.
