Abstract
There has been substantial urban growth in Stockholm, Sweden, the fastest-growing capital in Europe. The intensifying urbanization poses challenges for environmental management and sustainable development. Using Sentinel-2 and SPOT-5 imagery, this research investigates the evolution of land-cover change in Stockholm County between 2005 and 2015, and evaluates urban growth impact on protected green areas, green infrastructure and urban ecosystem service provision. One scene of 2015 Sentinel-2A multispectral instrument (MSI) and 10 scenes of 2005 SPOT-5 high-resolution instruments (HRI) imagery over Stockholm County are classified into 10 land-cover categories using object-based image analysis and a support vector machine algorithm with spectral, textural and geometric features. Reaching accuracies of approximately 90%, the classifications are then analyzed to determine impact of urban growth in Stockholm between 2005 and 2015, including land-cover change statistics, landscape-level urban ecosystem service provision bundle changes and evaluation of regional and local impact on legislatively protected areas as well as ecologically significant green infrastructure networks. The results indicate that urban areas increased by 15%, while non-urban land cover decreased by 4%. In terms of ecosystem services, changes in proximity of forest and low-density built-up areas were the main cause of lowered provision of temperature regulation, air purification and noise reduction. There was a decadal ecosystem service loss of 4.6 million USD (2015 exchange rate). Urban areas within a 200 m buffer zone around the Swedish environmental protection agency’s nature reserves increased 16%, with examples of urban areas constructed along nature reserve boundaries. Urban expansion overlapped the deciduous ecological corridor network and green wedge/core areas to a small but increasing degree, often in close proximity to weak but important green links in the landscape. Given these findings, increased conservation/restoration focus on the region’s green weak links is recommended.
Highlights
As of 2018, 55% of the world population resides in urban areas, a percentage that is projected to increase to 68% by 2050 [1]
This research investigates urban expansion in Stockholm County between 2005 and 2015 and the resulting environmental impact based on object-oriented support vector machine (SVM) classifications of Sentinel-2A multispectral instrument (MSI) and SPOT-5 high-resolution instruments (HRI) data
Similar high accuracies were achieved for both classifications, but Sentinel-2A MSI data proved useful in its coverage of nearly the entire study area by one image and its variety of spectral bands which contributed to better classification of agriculture, forest and wetland classes when compared to the classification of the SPOT-5 HRI data
Summary
As of 2018, 55% of the world population resides in urban areas, a percentage that is projected to increase to 68% by 2050 [1]. Urban expansion is one of the primary drivers of habitat loss and species extinction [2,3]. Urban development changes microclimate and air quality [6], habitat structure and patterns of species diversity and abundance [7,8,9] as well as the availability of natural resources [10]. It affects nutrient cycling [11], hydrological function [12], primary productivity [13] and ecosystem dynamics [4,14]. Monitoring changes in landscape patterns and its influence on ecosystem services is crucial to sustainable urban planning and development
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