Changes in Land Use and Its Impact on the Hierarchy of Roads in Ramadi City

Abstract

Well-consideration should be given to the change in land use since it has a significant impact on the hierarchy of roads in terms of traffic congestion, traffic accidents, and low efficiency of roads as they serve traffic volumes higher than what has been planned for the master plans of cities. Therefore, this research investigates the impact of change in land uses on the hierarchy of roads in Ramadi city by utilizing Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) in the Geographic Information System (GIS) to analyze the relationship between changes in land uses and road class according to the functional classification system of Ramadi city. The GWR analysis method was adopted because it provides an accurate description of the study area and takes into account the spatial dimension of the phenomenon. It was concluded that all classes of roads (major arterial, minor arterial, collector, and local roads) have a linear relationship with changes in land uses. Moreover, results show that the secondary arterial roads are the most affected by changes in land uses while the local roads are uselessly affected.