Urban areas are full of complex human processes interacting with those of the natural environment. For example, cities contain buried pipes and sewers, impervious surfaces interrupted by open areas and parks, buildings of various geometries, and moving vehicles. All of these systems interact with the soils and vegetation that we have typically modeled in isolation in environmental studies. With large datasets now available, alone with new technology and methods, we are now building better tools for understanding the humans' and cities' contributions to the Earth system.