Abstract
Urban sprawl causes changes in land use and a decline in many ecosystem services. Understanding the spatial patterns of sprawl and exploration of citizens’ perception towards the sporadic urban expansion and its impacts on an ecosystem to deliver services can help to guide land use planning and the conservation of the urban ecosystem. Here, we spatially examined land use changes in Multan, Pakistan, and investigated public perception about urban sprawl and its impacts on the quality and provision of ecosystem services, using a survey instrument. The spatial analysis of the historical land cover of Multan indicated an exponential expansion of the city in the last decade. Large areas of natural vegetation and agricultural land were converted to urban settlements in the past two decades. The citizens of Multan believe that the quality and provision of ecosystem services have declined in the recent past and strongly correlate the deteriorating ecosystem services with urban sprawl. Education and income levels of the respondents are the strongest predictors of urban ecosystem health literacy. Citizens associated with laborious outdoor jobs are more sensitive to the changes in ecosystem services. We concluded that the rapidly expanding cities, especially in the tropical arid zones, need to be prioritized for an increase in vegetation cover, and economically vulnerable settlements in these cities should be emphasized in climate change mitigation campaigns.
Highlights
The contemporary world is increasingly urbanizing [1]
We investigated the socioeconomic factors determining the public sensitivity towards the urban ecosystem services and the extent to which people believed those changes are caused by urban sprawl
We assessed the magnitude of city expansion and other land use changes in the recent past
Summary
The contemporary world is increasingly urbanizing [1]. The global urban population is projected to nearly double between 2000 and 2030 (from 2.84 billion to 4.9 billion); the bigger concern, could be that the extent of urban areas is expected to expand three-fold within the same period [2]. Urban sprawl is feared to draw on natural resources and degrade the quality and provision of ecosystem services [2]. Urban sprawl can cause significant environmental changes as major ecosystem services, such as the provision of food and raw material, conservation of soil and natural vegetation, hydrology and climate, carbon sequestration, and landscape aesthetic, may degrade as a result of rapid expansion of urban areas [1,4,5,8]. Urban sprawl is central to the issues surrounding sustainable urban development as it generates multiple impacts, like increased air and water pollution, and loss of local biodiversity and open areas with consequent detrimental effects on human health [9,10]
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