Modeling Urban Population Growth from Remotely Sensed Imagery and TIGER GIS Road Data

Abstract

We modeled population growth from 1990 to 2000 in the north Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex using two different methods: a conventional model based on remote sensing land-use change detection, and a newly devised approach using GIS-derived road development measurements. These methods were applied at both city and census-tract levels and were evaluated against the actual population growth. It was found that accurate population growth estimates are achieved by both methods. At the census-tract level, our models yielded a comparable result with that obtained from a more complex commercial demographics model. At both city and census-tract levels, models using road development were better than those using land-use change detection. In addition to being efficient in cost and time, our models provide direct visualization of the distribution of the actual population growth within cities and census tracts when compared to commercial demographic models.