Observing Changes Due to Urbanization and Anthropogenic Activities Across the Middle East and North Africa Using Cosmo-Skymed Background Mission and Bespoke Spotlight Time Series

Algorithms of amplitude change detection and texture extraction are applied to consistent satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) time series collected by the Italian Space Agency (ASI)'s COSMO-SkyMed constellation over the modern town of Shahat (Libya) and the archaeological site of Apamea (Syria). The high spatial resolution and 16- day revisit time of the COSMO-SkyMed Background Mission allowed for an accurate temporal logging of new constructions due to urban sprawl in Shahat, thus complementing assessments based on multispectral Sentinel-2 imagery. Bespoke Enhanced Spotlight acquisition campaigns led to mapping of looting features in Apamea with as much fine detail as very high resolution optical data. © 2020 IEEE.