Urban expansion and environmental risk in the São Paulo Metropolitan Area

Abstract

In this study, we simulated the expansion of the Sao Paulo Metropolitan Area (SPMA)— the largest metropolitan area in Brazil — by the year 2030 using the Dinamica EGO soft- ware with data extracted from Landsat TM 7 (orbit point 219 076, resolution 30 × 30 m). Based on the urban area in 2008, we used an urban growth scenario to analyze urban expansion up to 2030. Subsequently, we used ArcGIS to integrate the spatial information, combining layers to create risk maps. In this case, environmental risk factors, along with flood and landslide probabilities, were considered in order to identify high-risk areas. By 2030, the urban area was projected to increase by approximately 38.7%, and to cover 3250 km 2 . With this growth, 807 km 2 of the region (and ~4.27% of urban expansion areas) will be in flood risk zones.