Assessment of Life Quality Using GIS and Remote Sensing Techniques: A Case Study on Assuit City, Egypt

Urban quality of life (QOl) is becoming the subject of urban research mainly in developed and developing countries. Such attention is due to an increasing awareness of the contribution of QOL studies in identification of  problematic  areas and in monitoring  urban planning policies. However, most studies of quality of life accomplished in urban or country level. Therefore, change of quality of life in small scales especially in inter-urban areas is not well known. In addition, relation between objective and subjective quality of life also is not well specified. This paper applies a methodology for measuring QOL using both objective and subjective indicators by integration of remote sensing and GIS techniques in Assuit city. Objective environmental indicators like land surface temperature (LST), Greenness (NDVI), and impervious surface (IS) are extracted from landsat ETM+ images and  objective socio-economic indicators such as GDP, unemployment rate and illiteracy are derived from  census and other secondary sources. While Subjective indicators are derived from a survey that was conducted in 2010. For analyzing data statistical methods such as person correlation ,factor analysis, remote sensing and GIS for presenting distribution of quality of life. Generally, The main findings of the study indicate the presence of QOL variability and the importance of studying both subjective and objective indicators instead of any one of these separately. Also findings and methods of this study can be used in planning future studies of quality of urban life in Egypt.