Analyzing urban sprawl in response to land use land cover change dynamics in Areka town and surrounding area: Wolaita Zone, Ethiopia

Urbanization and industrialization cause a serious land degradation problem, including an increased pressure on natural resources such as deforestation, rise in temperature and management of water resources. The Urban Heat Island (UHI) effects of urbanization are widely acknowledged. Increase of impervious surface is a surrogate measure of urbanization and their effects on local hydrology is well reported in literature. This study investigates the spatial-temporal dynamics of land use and land cover changes in Al Ain, UAE, from 2006 to 2016. The Landsat images of two different periods, i.e., Landsat ETM of 2006 and Landsat 8 for 2016 were acquired from earth explorer site. Semi-supervised known as the hybrid classification method was used for image classification. The change detection was carried out through post-classification techniques. The study area was categorized into five major classes. These are agriculture, gardens, urban, sandy areas and mixed urban/sandy areas. It was observed that agricultural and urban land increases from 42,560 ha to 45,950 ha (8%) and 8150 ha to 9105 ha (12%), respectively. Consequently, the natural sandy area was reduced. It was also found that the urban area was expanded dramatically in the west and southwest directions. The outcomes of this study would help concerning authorities for a sustainable land and water resources management in the Al Ain region.

In Jos metropolis, urban sprawl debate has closely paralleled on urban growth trends over the past few decades. These studies indicate that it is the pattern, types, density and rate of new urban growth that creates the appearance of sprawl. Population dynamics are often cited as a driving force behind urban sprawl. This paper uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping and land cover change analysis, neighbourhood statistics, cross change detection techniques, field work on Urban sprawl areas in Jos metropolis. The paper also highlights the characteristics, types, rates, pattern and density of sprawl to examine the spatial pattern of sprawl in Jos North and Jos South. Linear sprawl pattern can only be visually seen by the road, the roads in Jos play important role in linear pattern of urban sprawl formation through road data, it helped to visualize clearly the areas of linear sprawl in Jos metropolis. An example can be visually seen in Naraguta area, part of a large high residential development of Jos north. Cluster types of urban sprawl settlement development in Jos metropolis. From the map, it shows that cluster types of sprawls in study area are found in the core city of Jos metropolis like Jos city and Bukuru in the study area. Cluster type of urban sprawl also appeared to grow out of what was once a leapfrog pattern of development in some area in the study area. Leapfrog patterns of urban sprawl appeared to be somewhat disconnected from other areas of existing developed settlement land. Leapfrog types of urban sprawl in Jos metropolis can be seen in Kuru North, Dan Miangu, Barakin Kuru and Kuru Hills.After the map of the densities urban sprawl for new growth areas has been created. The study reveals that settlement area has increase from 125.45 to 208.16 sq.km between 2002-2022 in twenty years period. It also revealed that water bodies have also drastically reduced by 3.33 sq.km and open space land use contributed about 127.57 km2 land converted to settlement within the time under study. Further analysis reveals that the urban settlement land of the area increased approximately 82.71 km2 in the twenty years’ time period of the study (2002 to 2022). Next, the patterns of urban expansions were analyzed by using mapping capabilities within the GIS and neighborhood statistics in order to show the density and connectivity of patches of new growth. Based on the density and connectivity of new growth areas, the patterns of growth were classified as: linear along highways, cluster, and leapfrog. The threshold densities are; 0 to 2000 as 30-meter pixels per km2 for low density, 2000 to 25000 for medium density, and 25000 to 130000 for high density. The results indicate that Jos metropolis did experience an increase in urban growth from 2002 to 2022 and that urban growth in the study area can be classified as urban sprawl. The density of new development is more in Jos North, but the pattern and character with which development has occurred in Jos North is synonymous with sprawl in Jos South. the type, rate and patterns of urban expansions were analyzed by using mapping capabilities within the GIS and neighborhood statistics in order to show the density and connectivity of patches of new growth in the study area.

Urban heat islands (UHI) disrupt the environmental balance in urban areas. The rate and impact of this formation are intensified by the increase in impervious surfaces, along with urban sprawl and land use changes. This increase reduces natural water absorption, causing heat retention and airflow restriction. Changes in land cover alter surface albedo, affecting energy interactions between the atmosphere and the surface, leading to local climate change. Remote detection methods are important tools for data gathering and assessing UHIs. This study uses a spatiotemporal analysis to examine the relationship between urban development and UHI change between 2005 and 2021, focusing on the Etimesgut district, located on the western development axis of Ankara, where land use changed from agricultural and public land to large-scale residential areas in the last three decades, in particular along with the development of mass housing by Housing Development Agency. Therefore, the district was under pressure for urban growth and mainly developed by transferring public property to private property. The analysis explains how urban sprawl increases land surface temperature (LST), contributing to the formation of UHIs. This study shows that in the Etimesgut district, where the built-up area has increased significantly between 2005 and 2021, from 9,040 ha to 12,934 ha, showing a 43.08% increase, there has been an increase in the LST by about four °C, rising from 43.33°C to 47.02°C in July. Satellite imagery-based findings indicate that the replacement of agricultural land by built-up areas accelerates the rise in temperatures in the region by weakening natural cooling mechanisms. This study intends to inform urban policy and policy development and offers an evidence-based approach using the Etimesgut district in Ankara as a case study. Urban development policies should cover climate-prone strategies and thermal governance to mitigate the UHI effects when barren or agricultural land is replaced with impervious surfaces of large-scale residential areas.

Prediction of ecological effects of potential population and impervious surface increases using a remote sensing based ecological index (RSEI)

Land Use Land Cover Changes (LULCC) data provide objective information to support environmental policy, urban planning purposes and sustainable land development. Understanding of past land use/cover practices and current landscape patterns is critical to assess the effects of LULCC on the Earth system. Within the framework of soil sealing in Italy, the present study aims to assess the LULCC of the Nola area (Naples metropolitan area, Italy), relating to a thirty year period from 1984 to 2015. The urban sprawl affects this area causing the impervious surface increase, the loss in rural areas and landscape fragmentation. Located near Vesuvio volcano and crossed by artificial filled rivers, the study area is subject to landslide, hydraulic and volcanic risks. Landsat time series has been processed by means of the supervised per-pixel classification in order to produce multitemporal Land Use Land Cover maps. Then, post-classification comparison approach has been applied to quantify the changes occurring between 1984 and 2015, also analyzing the intermediate variations in 1999, namely every fifteen years. The results confirm the urban sprawl. The increase of the built-up areas mainly causes the habitat fragmentation and the agricultural land conversion of the Nola area that is already damaged by unauthorized disposal of urban waste. Moreover, considering the local risk maps, it was verified that some of the new urban areas were built over known hazardous sites. In order to limit the soil sealing, urgent measures and sustainable urban planning are required.

Urban sprawl is a worldwide phenomenon especially in fast developing regions of China which is a typical representative. The study on the spatiotemporal characteristics of urban sprawl and urban pattern is useful for land sustainable management and urban land planning. This research explores the spatiotemporal dynamics of urban sprawl in the context of a rapid urbanization process in a booming economic region of southern China from 1979 to 2005. Three urban sprawl types are distinguished based on analyzing overlaid urban area maps of each two adjacent study years which originates from the interpretation of remote sensed images and the vector land use maps. The landscape metrics are used to analyze the spatiotemporal pattern of urban sprawl for each study period. The study results show that urban areas have expanded dramatically, and the spatiotemporal landscape pattern configured by three sprawl types changed obviously.

Urban sprawl is the most prominent characteristic of urbanization, and increasingly affects local and regional sustainable development. The observation and analysis of urban sprawl dynamics and their relationship with urbanization quality are essential for framing integrative urban planning. In this study, the urban areas of the West Taiwan Strait Urban Agglomeration (WTSUA) were extracted using nighttime light imagery from 1992 to 2013. The spatio-temporal characteristics and pattern of urban sprawl were quantitatively analyzed by combining an urban expansion rate index and a standard deviation ellipse model. The urbanization quality was assessed using an entropy weight model, and its relationship with urban sprawl was calculated by a coupling coordination degree model. The results showed that the urban area in the WTSUA experienced a significant increase, i.e., 18,806.73 km2, during the period 1992–2013. The central cities grew by 11.08% and noncentral cities by 27.43%, with a general uneven city rank-size distribution. The urban sprawl showed a circular expansion pattern, accompanied by a gradual centroid migration of urban areas from the southeast coast to the central-western regions. The coupling coordination level between urban expansion and urbanization quality increased from serious incoordination in 1992 to basic coordination in 2013. Dual driving forces involving state-led policies and market-oriented land reform had a positive influence on the harmonious development of urban sprawl and urbanization quality of the WTSUA. This research offers an effective approach to monitor changes in urban sprawl and explore the coupling coordination relationship between urban sprawl and urbanization quality. The study provides important scientific references for the formulation of future policies and planning for sustainable development in urban agglomerations.

As a key parameter representing the outgoing solar flux fractions reflected by earth surface, the albedo of land surface has been strongly altered by the change of land covers, especially the increase of the impervious surface caused by the urbanization. This paper discussed and demonstrated the albedo changed with the impervious increases around Beijing-Tianjin urban region, where land cover type has been strongly changed since the 1980s, especially a large scale of buildings and roads increased in Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. We extracted the variation information of albedo from MODIS data as well as the impervious changes by using two scenes Landsat Thematic Mapper images. The relationship between the change pattern of albedo and the impervious surface was discussed and especially the regions within the five rim of Beijing urban, and the surrounding areas along two Jing-Jin highways were paid more attention to. It was found that the variation of the near infrared albedo albedo in 2008 shows an obvious change with the increase of impervious surface, while the change is not apparent in the visible band.

Response of ecosystem services to impervious surface changes and their scaling effects in Loess Plateau ecological Screen, China

Urbanization has evolved as one of the key factors responsible for the environmental health not only for the urban centres, but also for the suburban regions. In the recent years, most of the suburban regions in India are experiencing flash floods during the high intensity low duration rainfall condition. Such situations of flash floods in the urban and suburban areas are referred to as storm runoff. This paper deals with the computation of storm runoff in the suburban catchments of the Pune City. Five catchments, known for flash floods in the recent years, are identified for the present work. Storm runoff estimations in these catchments have been done using LandsatTM data of 1989 and 2011. Population-calibrated impervious surfaces (IS) were extracted for these catchments, and runoff has been calculated using the Soil Conservation Service-Curve Number method. Major changes in the land use land cover pattern in these 22 years have been detected, with a net growth in built-up area of almost 10 times from 1989 to 2011, leading to the increase in IS in the catchment. The impact of increase in built-up area and IS has augmented storm runoff in the catchment. Estimated runoff values increased from 461.8 m3 to 1068.52 m3 (Baner), 2026.4 m3 to 3638.73 m3 (Kharadi), 2947.5 m3 to 4736.46 m3 (Kondhwa Ghorpadi ), 1021.1 m3 to 2039.57 m3 (Wadgaon Sheri) and 1176.89 m3 to 3691.18 m3 (Wadgaon Budruk) from 1989 to 2011. Thus, it is quite evident that the growth in built-up area and impervious surfaces has enhanced the capacity of suburban basins to generate more runoff.

Monitoring and providing accurate land use and land cover (LULC) change information is vital for sustainable environmental planning. This study used Landsat imagery from 2002 to 2022 to create updated LULC change maps for the eThekwini Municipality. Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) were used to conduct these LULC classifications, with XGBoost achieving the highest accuracy (80.57%). The generated maps revealed a significant decrease in cropland and an increase in impervious surfaces. As such, this research established a framework for continuous LULC mapping and highlighted Landsat 9’s potential in LULC classifications.

Urban sprawl, meaning low density and inefficient development around cities, occurs as a result of population explosion and high immigration rate. Urban sprawl results in changes in land use and the loss of agricultural lands and open spaces around cities. In Iran, which has a high rate of urbanization, urban sprawl is considered as one of the main factors transforming land use. In particular, it is critically important to examine this phenomenon in Gilan province since it is one of the country's main agricultural zones and it also enjoys a high level of biodiversity. In this article an attempt is made to investigate urban sprawl metrics and dynamics in Rasht, Bandar-e-Anzali, and Some-e-Sara in landscape scale using RS data and GIS and also the demographic data collected over the last two decades. The results of the study show that the development of the built-up area was more than the rate of population growth in the area while the proportion of population to the built-up area (alpha density) decreased. The results also suggest that the expanse and pattern of urban sprawl can be determined by utilizing the RS and GIS and the collected temporal and spatial data. Calculating the landscape metrics such as Shannon's entropy, patchiness, and map density, the government's policy of controlling urban sprawl was verified to be effective.

Eastern Bandung Region including Cileunyi, Jatinangor and Rancaekek is a suburb area of Bandung, which has gone through many changes in land use from agrarian to non-agrarian, also the population density and urban growth rate have increased. This phenomenon can lead to urban sprawl and potentially lead to a negative spatial transformation and inefficient resource allocation. This research objectives are to identify the characteristics of urban sprawl development and the pattern of urban sprawl in Eastern Bandung area in 2002, 2010 and 2017. This study uses quantitative approach with descriptive method also spatial analysis technique, scoring, and descriptive analysis. The spatial data that was used are Google Earth image data in 2002, 2010 and 2017. The results of this study show that the characteristics of urban sprawl development that consist of physical and social dimension is high with a score of 2.46. The pattern of urban sprawl can be identified as the combination of ribbon and leap frog development. Ribbon development can be seen in Cileunyi and Jatinangor, meanwhile leap frog development occurs in Rancaekek. The results of this study hopefully can help improve the understanding about urban sprawl and encourage the policy makers in controlling the spatial transformation wisely.

Multi-order urban development model and sprawl patterns: An analysis in China, 2000–2010

Development and economic growth in Indonesia have experienced rapid progress, followed by urbanization marked by the expansion of urban areas towards the outskirts, and have triggered urban expansion and land cover changes, especially on the outskirts of Surabaya City, and continue to expand to the Gerbangkertosusila area, which can indicate a decrease in Green Open Space (GOS). Given the important role of green open space in the sustainability of metropolitan areas, this study has three objectives. First, to analyze the impact of urban sprawl on GOS with spatial dynamics of land cover changes using Land Use Cover Changes (LUCC) analysis using ArcGIS software. Second, to identify spatial patterns of urban sprawl, and third, to calculate the index sprawl value to determine areas with urban sprawl impacts. The results of our study show that GOS has decreased in 25 years by 9.32%, and built-up area has increased by 8.27% of the total area of Gerbangkertosusila. The patterns of urban expansion that occur are Leap Frog Development, Ribbon Development, and Post- suburbia. The highest area expansion index value is in Sidoarjo at 4.74 and the lowest in Bangkalan at -7.62. The expansion of this area is marked by the development of settlements, industrial areas, and transportation routes, which result in the conversion of green open spaces into Built-up areas. Based on the analysis used in the Gerbangkertosusila area, the concept of Urban Growth Boundaries (UGB) is necessary; this concept effectively addresses urban expansion by establishing urban development permit policies.