Three-dimensional (3D) urban structures play a critical role in informing climate mitigation strategies aimed at the built environment and facilitating sustainable urban development. Regrettably, there exists a significant gap in detailed and consistent data on 3D building space structures with global coverage due to the challenges inherent in the data collection and model calibration processes. In this study, we constructed a global urban structure dataset (GUS-3D), including building volume, height, and footprint information, at a 500 m spatial resolution using extensive satellite observation products and numerous reference building samples. Our analysis indicated that the total volume of buildings worldwide in 2015 exceeded 1 × 10 m. Over the 1985 to 2015 period, we observed a slight increase in the magnitude of 3D building volume growth (i.e., it increased from 166.02 km during the 1985–2000 period to 175.08 km during the 2000–2015 period), while the expansion magnitudes of the two-dimensional (2D) building footprint (22.51 × 10 km vs. 13.29 × 10 km) and urban extent (157 × 10 km vs. 133.8 × 10 km) notably decreased. This trend highlights the significant increase in intensive vertical utilization of urban land. Furthermore, we identified significant heterogeneity in building space provision and inequality across cities worldwide. This inequality is particularly pronounced in many populous Asian cities, which has been overlooked in previous studies on economic inequality. The GUS-3D dataset shows great potential to deepen our understanding of the urban environment and creates new horizons for numerous 3D urban studies.

中文翻译：

---

三维 (3D) 城市结构的全球测绘揭示了垂直维度利用率的不断提高和明显的建筑空间不平等

三维 (3D) 城市结构在为建筑环境制定气候缓解战略和促进可持续城市发展方面发挥着关键作用。遗憾的是，由于数据收集和模型校准过程中固有的挑战，覆盖全球的 3D 建筑空间结构的详细且一致的数据存在巨大差距。在本研究中，我们利用广泛的卫星观测产品和大量参考建筑样本，构建了一个全球城市结构数据集 (GUS-3D)，包括建筑体积、高度和占地面积信息，空间分辨率为 500 m。我们的分析表明，2015年全球建筑总体积超过1×10m。在1985年至2015年期间，我们观察到3D建筑体积增长幅度略有增加（即从1985-2000年期间的166.02公里增加到2000-2015年期间的175.08公里），而扩张幅度为二维 (2D) 建筑占地面积（22.51 × 10 公里 vs. 13.29 × 10 公里）和城市范围（157 × 10 公里 vs. 133.8 × 10 公里）显着减少。这一趋势凸显了城市土地垂直集约利用的显着增长。此外，我们发现世界各地城市在建筑空间供应和不平等方面存在显着的异质性。这种不平等在许多人口稠密的亚洲城市尤为明显，而这一点在以往的经济不平等研究中被忽视了。 GUS-3D 数据集显示出加深我们对城市环境的理解并为众多 3D 城市研究创造新视野的巨大潜力。