Abstract
Negative consequences of urban growing disparities usually lead to impressive levels of segregation, marginalization, and injustices, particularly in the context of climate change. Understanding the relations between urban expansion and social vulnerability has become extremely necessary for municipality management and sustainable urban development. Although the study of urbanization in Latin America (LA) has been well discussed, little attention has been given to how the population is affected by urban expansion-oriented movement after the 2008 economic crisis. Massive investments in infrastructure displaced the population to peripheral zones without adequate urban planning, which reflected in alteration in land use and land cover (LULC), followed by environmental impacts and public health issues caused by thermal discomfort, notably in semiarid regions. This paper aims to evaluate the effects of urban sprawl on the Teresina–Timon conurbation (TTC) area’s local population, located in Brazil’s northeast. Descriptive metrics (Moran’s I statistic and social vulnerability index) and orbital products derived from remote sensing—LULC and Land surface temperature (LST) maps—were applied. The results indicated that the housing program ‘My House My Life’ (PMCMV) had increased the values of land consumption per capita since 2009 significantly, showing a clear expanding trend. The gradual replacement of green areas by residential settlements resulted in an increased LST. The PMCMV program contributed substantially to a change in land use and land cover, which increased the extent of urbanized areas and changed the local microclimate.
Highlights
Rapid urbanization growth has become a challenge for global sustainability
Our results show that the association between land coverage and land surface temperature is significantly positive and increased from 0.538 in 2000, with 0.556 in 2010, and by 0.574 in 2019
Even confirming that land surface temperature (LST) changes are just a proxy for the surface urban heat island (SUHI), our results demonstrate that the housing settlement implementation trend and impacts are evident for thermal comfort quality
Summary
Rapid urbanization growth has become a challenge for global sustainability. Cities are continually expanding in population and size, and this spread usually culminates in environmental degradation and the permanent transformation of the local ecosystem [1,2,3].urban development has been pointed out as one of the drives of carbon losses from natural vegetation replacement, biodiversity disturbance, and soil rarefaction [4,5,6].In this context, urban sprawl has been identified globally as one of the significant outcomes of urbanization processes associated with a vast range of social, environmental, and public health issues. Cities are continually expanding in population and size, and this spread usually culminates in environmental degradation and the permanent transformation of the local ecosystem [1,2,3]. Urban development has been pointed out as one of the drives of carbon losses from natural vegetation replacement, biodiversity disturbance, and soil rarefaction [4,5,6]. In this context, urban sprawl has been identified globally as one of the significant outcomes of urbanization processes associated with a vast range of social, environmental, and public health issues. Even considering its relatively small coverage [1], the urban sprawl’s land consumption is described as having a profound impact on biodiversity conservation and carbon, water, nitrogen, and aerosol cycles at local and global scales
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