Urban Land Cover Research Articles

Impact of growth of a medium-sized Indian coastal city on urban climate: A case study using data fusion and analytics

In India, unlike mega cities, little is known about how the growth of small and medium-sized cities (SMSC) impacts urban climate. Further, such impacts are amplified in coastal settings. We use data fusion and analytics to study how the growth of Thiruvananthapuram, a typical medium-sized coastal city in India, modifies the urban climate. The datasets used are National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land products, NASA Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA-2) and Indian Meteorological Department surface observations contained within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) global compilation of in-situ observations. The study found a ∼ 48% increase in urban and built-up land cover over the last two decades, causing an increase in albedo, surface roughness and a decrease in emissivity and moisture availability. Decreasing moisture availability most affected air temperature, with urban growth adding to large-scale climatic trends of increasing monthly mean daily maximum (+1 °C), minimum (+0.4 °C) and average temperatures (+0.22 °C). Sea-breeze circulation strengthened in response to increasing coastal urbanization and the inland propagation modified with increased convergence and (potentially) rainfall, near the coast.

Cropland and rooftops: the global undertapped potential for solar photovoltaics

The utilization of cropland and rooftops for solar photovoltaics (PVs) installation holds significant potential for enhancing global renewable energy capacity with the advantage of dual land-use. This study focuses on estimating the global area suitable for agrivoltaics (PV over crops) and rooftop PVs by employing open-access data, existing literature and simple numerical methods in a high spatial resolution of 10 km × 10 km. For agrivoltaics, the suitability is assessed with a systematic literature review on crop-dependent feasibility and profitability, especially for 18 major crops of the world. For rooftop PV, a non-linear curve-fitting method is developed, using the urban land cover to calculate the PV-suitable built-up areas. This method is then verified by comparing the results with open-access building footprints. The spatially resolved suitability assessment unveils 4.64 million km2 of global PV-usable cropland corresponding to a geographic potential of about 217 Terawatts (TW) in an optimistic scenario and 0.21 million km2 of rooftop-PV suitable area accounting for about 30.5 TW maximum installable power capacity. The estimated suitable area offers a vast playground for energy system analysts to undertake techno-economic assessments, and for technology modellers and policy makers to promote PV implementation globally with the vision of net-zero emissions in the future.

Combining LSTM and PLUS Models to Predict Future Urban Land Use and Land Cover Change: A Case in Dongying City, China

Land use is a process that turns a piece of land’s natural ecosystem into an artificial one. The mix of plant and man-made covers on the Earth’s surface is known as land cover. Land use is the primary external force behind change in land cover, and land cover has an impact on how land use is carried out, resulting in a synergistic interaction between the two at the Earth’s surface. In China’s Shandong Peninsula city cluster, Dongying is a significant coastal port city. It serves as the administrative hub for the Yellow River Delta and is situated in Shandong Province, China’s northeast. The changes in its urban land use and land cover in the future are crucial to understanding. This research suggests a prediction approach that combines a patch-generation land use simulation (PLUS) model and long-term short-term memory (LSTM) deep learning algorithm to increase the accuracy of predictions of future land use and land cover. The effectiveness of the new method is demonstrated by the fact that the average inaccuracy of simulating any sort of land use in 2020 is around 5.34%. From 2020 to 2030, 361.41 km2 of construction land is converted to cropland, and 424.11 km2 of cropland is converted to water. The conversion areas between water and unused land and cropland are 211.47 km2 and 148.42 km2, respectively. The area of construction land and cropland will decrease by 8.38% and 3.64%, respectively, while the area of unused land, water, and grassland will increase by 5.53%, 2.44%, and 0.78%, respectively.

Variation in the hydrological response within the Quebrada Seca watershed in Costa Rica resulting from an increase of urban land cover

ABSTRACT Urbanization is a global phenomenon which has provoked severe disruptions in hydrological cycles, resulting in flooding problems. While detailed studies exist for the world’s temperate zones, they are few for tropical zones where most of future urbanization may occur and where flooding is already a problem. A tropical watershed in Costa Rica was used to analyze the urban development and the associated hydrological response between 1945 and 2019, based on remotely sensed data and a numerical model. Using a detailed spatial-temporal approach, we found that the watershed’s overall urbanization over the timespan (+64%-points urban-areas) had led to major hydrological challenges (+80% runoff-volume, +220% peak-flow-rate and maximum-specific-discharge, and −25 min time-to-peak). These challenges were then placed in the context of historically reported flood events, providing a basis for spatially-differentiated flood mitigation actions and for guiding future urbanization. The study also provides valuable insights for other tropical regions with the same situation.

Multi-decadal changes in river morphology in an urbanizing watershed: Highland Creek, Toronto, Canada

Urban land development causes significant changes to river channel form and function. Outcomes are strongly conditioned by local circumstances although responses such as channel enlargement and incision are common but are highly variable in extent and detectability. Many case studies focus on small watersheds (or short reaches) and before-after conditions, and direct causation and temporal trajectories of change are not well known but often presumed to be a single step change and response. Well-documented examples in fully-urban, larger watersheds are rare, and rarer still are cases covering the full trajectory from pre-urban to fully urban land cover with accompanying data on the direct drivers of change such as discharge and stream power. Highland Creek, Toronto, has a drainage area of 102 km2 and between the early 1950s and 2000s underwent a land cover change from agricultural to completely urban in very low relief terrain with channels in narrow valleys incised locally into glacial sediments. Streamflow monitoring, land cover data and aerial photography over this seven-decade period, along with a calibrated runoff model and digital elevation data, give a complete picture over multiple epochs of the causes and changes in fluvial hydrology and geomorphology. The complete transformation of the flow regime, along with channel straightening and steepening, resulted in increases in average stream power (total and specific) of the order of ten and six times, respectively. The channel is now exceptionally energetic with maximum total and specific stream power for 2-year flood approaching 5000 Wm−1 and 300 Wm−2, respectively. The semi-alluvial and supply-limited character of the channels is also influential. Channel response is variable along the 20–25 km of channel measured and is notably different between the sub-watersheds, related to timing of development and its intersection with engineering intervention, and changing conceptions of the channel over time. In places the channel widened by a factor of four or five and changed from high sinuosity meanders to wide, bar-chute morphology, consistent with regime expectations for gravel-bed channels. In other places the process of urbanization has involved progressive engineering of the channel to convey stormwater (channelized), protect infrastructure and mitigate erosion, so that responses in these reaches are much more restricted and fluvial functions such as bend and bar development have been eliminated. Substantial channel transformation can be seen to have occurred episodically resulting from two major flood events as well as the increases in magnitude and frequency of peak flows, which limit post-flood recovery. Urbanization effects and consequences have developed gradually over a long period, rather than in a single urbanization step change, and they do not match simple models of channel evolution. In many ways urbanization of the river is ongoing, particularly in the form of geomorphically-referenced design of the channels as a response to damage from large floods and overall institutional watershed planning. The ongoing urbanization story of Highland Creek illustrates some extreme effects of urbanization as well as the complexity and contingency of response to the physical and institutional processes influencing the trajectory of urban river evolution.

SVM-based classification of multi-temporal Sentinel-2 imagery of dense urban land cover of Delhi-NCR region

SVM-based classification of multi-temporal Sentinel-2 imagery of dense urban land cover of Delhi-NCR region

The Autobot-WQ: A portable, low-cost autosampler to provide new insight into urban spatio-temporal water quality dynamics

Urbanization and the increase in urban land cover are growing concerns associated with numerous negative impacts on surface water quality. Currently, many emerging contaminants are difficult to measure with no field deployable sensors currently available. Hence, discrete grab samples are required for subsequent laboratory analysis. To capture the spatiotemporal variability in pollution pulses, autosamplers can be used, but commercial offerings are both expensive and have a large footprint. This can be problematic in urban environments where there is a high density of point source inputs and risk of vandalism or theft. Here, we present a small and robust low-cost autosampler that is ideally suited for deployment in urban environments. The design is based on “off the shelf” open-source hardware components and software and requires no prior engineering, electronics, or computer programming experience to build. The autosampler uses a small peristaltic pump to enable collection of 14 small volume samples (50 mL) and is housed in a small footprint camera case. To illustrate the technology, we present two use cases for rapid sampling of stormwater pulses of: 1) an urban river channel and 2) green roof runoff. When compared with a commercial autosampler, our device showed comparable results and enabled us to capture temporal dynamics in key water quality parameters (e.g., dissolved organic matter) following rain events in an urban stream. Water quality differences associated with differing green roof design/maintenance regimes (managed and unmanaged vegetation) were captured using the autosampler, highlighting how unmanaged vegetation has a greater potential for mitigating the rapid runoff and peaked pollutant inputs associated with impervious surfaces. These two case studies show that our portable autosampler provides capacity to improve understanding of the impact of urban design and infrastructure on water quality and can lead to the development of more effective mitigation solutions. Finally, we discuss opportunities for further technical refinement of our autosampler and applications to improve environmental monitoring. We propose a holistic monitoring approach to address some of the outstanding challenges in urban areas and enable monitoring to shift from discrete point sources towards characterization of catchment or network scale dynamics.

Four decades of urban land cover change in Philadelphia

Given ambitious tree canopy goals, land cover change analyses in cities are imperative. Urban tree canopy change analyses have been hindered by data with low categorical resolution (e.g., canopy vs. not canopy), over relatively short time horizons (5–10 years), representing only two points in time, and scarce linkages to other temporal datasets (e.g., historical socioeconomic data). In this study, using a land cover change data set with five cover classes spanning 40 years (1970–2010) for Philadelphia, PA (US), we asked: which types of land cover changes are most common, and how do those relate to and co-vary with socioeconomic change? Specifically, we tabulated land cover changes (i.e., transition sequences), applied multinomial logistic regression with socioeconomic variables as predictors of land cover change, and used cluster analyses to characterize neighborhood changes associated with land cover change. Land cover stability dominated the transition sequences: the four most common sequences were stable road (e.g. road-road-road-road-road), stable building, tree canopy, and herbaceous vegetation, collectively accounting for 62.57% of all sequences. Multinomial logistic regression identified that increases in homeownership, income, and educational attainment were associated with a higher probability of tree canopy persistence. Cluster analyses via Affinity Propagation showed that some Census tracts have similar land cover change trajectories, and yet different socioeconomic trends. These findings point towards opportunities to focus on tree preservation alongside the importance of establishing new tree canopy through planting. Our study demonstrates the mix of stability and dynamism in multidecadal urban land cover change, and the importance of connecting land cover changes with socioeconomic changes.

Detecting local climate zone change and its effects on PM10 distribution using fuzzy machine learning in Tehran, Iran

Urban land use and land cover (LULC) change and climate affect a wide range of environmental health and human wellbeing issues, such as air pollution and soil erosion. However, it is challenging to quantify the effects of LULC change on Particulate Matter (PM) at a metropolitan scale. In this study, LULC maps of Tehran metropolitan region were prepared for the years 2013, 2017 and 2021 using Landsat 8 images. PM10 maps were extracted from an integrated approach of the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) classification scheme and Landsat images using Random Forest algorithm and fuzzy algorithm on the desired dates. The results show extensive changes of PM distributions in the Tehran metropolitan region. The most change occurred in the north of the city and the least change did in the city center. The most growth was LCZ 4 which had grown about 57 times in 8 years. The highest level of PM10 was found in the west and southwest regions while the lowest level was in the north of the city. Also, the analysis of highest average PM10 was in LCZ 10 and the lowest in LCZ G. The analysis of the PM10 average in LCZs and the comparison of PM10 time-series maps showed that the LCZs changes which occurred during the study period have reduced the concentration of air pollution in the Tehran metropolitan region.

Socio‐ecological interactions promote outbreaks of a harmful invasive plant in an urban landscape

Abstract Urban landscapes often harbour organisms that harm people and threaten native biodiversity. These landscapes are characterized by differences in socioeconomic context, habitat suitability and patch connectedness. Identifying which spatial differences enable outbreaks of pests, pathogens and invasive species will improve targeted control efforts. We tested hypotheses to explain the distribution and demography of puncturevine Tribulus terrestris, a human‐dispersed invasive plant in Boise, a city in the western United States. We hypothesized an increase in puncturevine infestations near low‐valued properties with a high proportion of bare ground, the species' preferred microhabitat, that are well connected on the urban road network. To test these hypotheses, we collected data on the abundance, emergence and persistence of reproductive plants in transects spanning >100 km of our study city. We then used hierarchical Bayesian models to evaluate the impacts of spatial covariates on puncturevine distribution and demography. Bare ground cover consistently increased abundance, emergence and persistence of puncturevine, indicating the overarching importance of suitable establishment sites for this invasive species. Property value had the strongest impact on puncturevine abundance and was the most important main effect in the model for puncturevine emergence. In both models, lower‐valued properties had a higher risk of puncturevine occurrence. The effects of road network connectivity depended on bare ground cover, with the highest predicted abundance and emergence of puncturevine in patches with low connectivity on the road network and high bare ground cover. Understanding these relationships will require data that can disentangle seed dispersal from establishment limitations. Identifying characteristics of urban patches that promote outbreaks of harmful species will improve the effectiveness and equity of control efforts. The prevalence of puncturevine in lower‐valued properties is cause for concern as the plant impedes bicycle transportation, with the potential for disproportionate impacts on marginalized groups that lack resources to repair punctured tires. Our results add to a growing recognition that low‐connectivity street networks have undesirable outcomes for environmental sustainability. As urban land cover continues to grow worldwide, accounting for interactions between human, natural and built systems will play a crucial role in managing invasive species.

ANALYSIS OF URBAN EXPANSION SURROUNDING ARCHAEOLOGICAL ATTRACTIONS BY NORMALIZED DIFFERENCE BUILT-UP INDEX TECHNIQUE AT ANCIENT CIVILIZATION SITE OF HARIPUNJAYA KINGDOM IN MUEANG LAMPHUN DISTRICT, LAMPHUN PROVINCE, THAILAND

The objective of this research is to study urban expansion surrounding archaeological attractions by Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI) technique at ancient civilization site of Haripunjaya Kingdom in Mueang Lamphun District, Lamphun Province, Thailand. From the survey area on October 18-20, 2022, the data was collected on important ancient sites that still appear traces around the city of Lamphun. The study found that there are a total of 13 archaeological sites, each of which is classified into 3 categories: 8 Ancient Religious sites, 4 Acient City Wall sites, and 1 Historical site. Then, surveys of urban and built-up land cover found that within the past 20 years, light urban and built-up land, urban areas and buildings with sparse density increased by 534.45%, or about 5 times, appearing around the old city in Nai Mueang sub-district and the area where the main road passes in a corridor pattern. In addition, the medium urban and built-up land area has also grown more than three times. It can be seen that urban expansion direction in the northern and central of the study area is most located in the 5 sub-district areas: Makhuea Chae, Ban Klang, Wiang Yong, Pa Sak, and Nai Mueang. The NDBI analysis revealed that the archaeological attractions that were most affected by urbanization were the Victory Shrine Pagoda. At present, it has become a historical site in the middle of the community area. It is located in the middle of the shopping mall parking lot, and there are buildings surrounding it, causing the archaeological site to be invaded and damaged greatly. The results of this study can be used to effectively manage cultural tourism planning, especially in the ancient civilization sites in Mueang Lamphun District, to be sustainable in the future.

Satellite Image Processing Using Radiometric Resolution & Spectral Resolution

Abstract: This paper presents a detailed comparison of various image processing techniques for analysing satellite images. The satellite images are large in size, acquired from long distances and are affected by noise and other environmental conditions. Hence it is necessary to process them so that they can be used by the researchers for analysis. Spectral resolution basically is to measure changes in things that impact our environments like water quality or vegetation etc. Satellite images are widely used in many real time applications such as in agriculture land detection, navigation and in geographical information systems. In this paper, a review of spectral resolution requirements for urban mapping evaluated how spectral resolution of high-spatial resolution optical remote sensing data influences detailed mapping of urban land cover. A comprehensive regional spectral library and low altitude data from the Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) were used to characterize the spectral properties of urban land cover.

Identification of priority areas for public-access automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in metropolitan areas: A case study in Hangzhou, China

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is a major health concern in China. The use of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) has received great attention from Chinese public healthcare departments as a useful intervention to address OHCA, and there is a growing need to place AEDs throughout the urban built environment. However, due to the lack of a publicly available, geocoded dataset of historical OHCA cases, there is not a coherent approach for identifying priority areas for AEDs placement in this country. This study attempts to fill this gap by examining the spatial disparity of OHCA risk in Hangzhou, China, and then proposing a Geographic Information Systems(GIS) based model that incorporates the urban land cover, vulnerable groups, and transportation accessibility to identify priority areas at the hexagon level for future AEDs placement. Results show that: (1) the hexagons with the highest level of OHCA risk (ranked Group 1) are accounting for 9.87%–16.71% and are spatially dispersed. (2) A large high-risk cluster was identified in the western region of the Qiantang district. (3) Nearly one-fifth of the new AEDs are recommended to install in Phase I, more than 60% in Phase II, and the remainder in Phase III. (4) Xiaoshan district requires the most AEDs, while Linping district requires the fewest. Ultimately, these results guide future placement of the AED facilities in the cities, particularly those with no geocoded OHCA historical data.

Land-use and land cover change dynamics in urban Ghana: implications for peri-urban livelihoods

ABSTRACTThis paper examined the dynamics of urban land use and land cover change, and their implications for livelihoods in peri-urban Tamale, Ghana. The study employed household data and Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) for 1986, Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM +) for 2004 and Landsat 8 Operationalised Landsat Imager/Thermal Infrared Sensor (OLIS/TIRS) for 2019. The findings show that the urban expansion process witnessed a transition from agricultural livelihood to a more complex and monetised urban economy, which presented mixed impacts on the livelihoods of the peri-urban households. We argued that the horizontal expansion of urban areas into prime agricultural lands could be halted by promoting vertical development in the form of multi-storey buildings rather than the horizontal multiplication of individual housing units. Supporting the peri-urban households to diversify their livelihood portfolios by venturing into beekeeping, poultry farming, and livestock keeping, which do not require large tracts of land is recommended.

Characterization and Mapping of Public and Private Green Areas in the Municipality of Forlì (NE Italy) Using High-Resolution Images

Urban Green Spaces (UGS) contribute to the sustainable development of the urban ecosystem, positively impacting quality of life and providing ecosystem services and social benefits to inhabitants. For urban planning, mapping and quantification of UGS become crucial. So far, the contribution of private green spaces to ecosystem services in urban areas has yet to be studied. At the same time, in many Italian cities, they represent a considerable part of the urban green cover. This study utilises a methodological approach and provides insights into the contribution of urban public and private green spaces by the consideration of a case study area in Northeast Italy. To achieve this goal, the main steps were: (i) NDVI extraction from very high-resolution (20 cm) orthophotos, (ii) classification of property status and (iii) analysis of the degree of the greenness of land cover units. From our results, the total amount of the green spaces is 5.70 km2, of which 72.1% (4.11 km2) is private, and 28.9% (1.59 km2) is public. As for the land cover, three NDVI classes were identified, highlighting different degrees of homogeneity in NDVI reflectance response within each urban land cover unit. These results will support the planning of new green areas in the post-epidemic National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

Modelling and Analysis of Urban Growth of Idah Metropolis Using GIS Integrated Gradient Technique

This thesis aims to better understand changes in the spatial pattern of urban growth and its impact on landscape configuration by conducting a case study in Idah metropolis. The objectives are as follows: 
 
 To model and analyze multi-temporal images (2001, 2010, and 2021) for determining the urban growth in Idah,
 To determine urban development trends using post-classification comparisons,
 Evaluating the degree of urban growth according to urban land cover change over that period 
 
 Satellite imagery was employed to distinguish and identify different land surface categories. Integrated remote sensing and GIS (Geographic Information System) technique was used to analyse both qualitative and quantitative perspectives regarding the objectives. The results indicate that the urban area of Idah experienced changes in the various classes. The vegetated area experienced a great change of 49.98%. That is a decrease from the previous year of 2001 to 2010. Also, another 48.67% decrease from 2010 to 2021 is due to the developments in the study area. The built-up area equally decreased by 1.33 % between 2010 and 2021. There was an increase of 12.04% from the year 2001 to 2010.Beach has a drastic increase from 28.10% observed between 2001 and 2010 to 44.50% between 2010. The geographic footprint demonstrates that the distribution of the built-up area was dispersed and continues to grow more dispersed. The significant contribution of this study could benefit many aspects, such as comparative studies between cities or continuous studies relevant to urban growth.

Modeling spatio temporal pattern of urban land use and land cover change by using geospatial technology: a case of Shambu Town, Horo Guduru Wallaga, Ethiopia

Modeling spatio temporal pattern of urban land use and land cover change by using geospatial technology: a case of Shambu Town, Horo Guduru Wallaga, Ethiopia

Constraining the uncertainty of urbanization effect on surface air temperature change over the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region in China

AbstractQuantitative assessment of urbanization effect on surface air temperature (SAT) change provides crucial basis for formal detection and attribution analyses of climate change. However, debates about urbanization‐related warming bias in documented regional SAT trend still persist, mainly due to different determination of rural stations. Here the urbanization effect on SAT change over the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region in China during 1980–2019 is estimated through three kinds of ways (i.e., comparisons between urban and rural stations [arithmetically station‐averaged], urban‐dominated and rural‐dominated patches [patch‐weighted mean], and realistic urban and rural areas [area‐weighted mean]). The last method explicitly takes urban and rural land cover fractions into account when calculating urban/rural and regional mean SAT trends. Urbanization‐induced warming in the annual mean SAT change of urban stations (areas) through the three ways are estimated as 0.159°C, 0.195°C, and 0.138°C per decade, respectively. And urbanization effect on regional averaged annual mean SAT calculated by patch‐weighted and area‐weighted methods are 0.113°C and 0.050°C per decade, respectively, which account for 33.8% and 14.8% of the total regional warming. The urbanization effect on observed SAT change estimated by considering realistic urban/rural land cover proportions is much lower than traditional station‐unweighted way.

An Urban Scheme for the ECMWF Integrated Forecasting System: Global Forecasts and Residential CO2 Emissions

AbstractThe impact of urbanization on local weather patterns affects over half the global population. Global numerical weather prediction systems have reached a resolution at which urban conurbations can be spatially resolved, justifying their representation within land surface parameterizations with the aim of improving local predictions. Additionally, real‐time atmospheric monitoring of trace gas emissions can utilize weather variables relevant for urban areas. We investigated whether a simple single‐layer urban canopy scheme can be used within a global forecast model to jointly improve predictions of near‐surface weather variables and residential CO2 emissions. The scheme has been implemented in the Integrated Forecast System used operationally at the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts running at ∼9 km horizontal resolution. First, we selected a suitable urban land cover map (ECOCLIMAP‐SG) based on comparisons with regional data and land surface temperature MODIS retrievals. The urban scheme is verified by providing improved 2 m temperature (∼10%) and 10 m wind (∼17%) RMSE values for both summer and winter months around urban environments. The influence of the scheme was most noticeable at night. Additionally, we have implemented a simple temperature‐dependent residential emissions model to calculate real‐time CO2 heating emissions. These were validated against existing offline products, national reporting and by comparing atmospheric simulations with total column CO2 observations. The results show an improved temporal variability of emissions, which arise from synoptic scale temperature changes. Given the improved predictability from the urban scheme for both weather and emissions, it will be operationally implemented in an upcoming model cycle.

A Rapid Extraction Method for Information on Complex Urban Land Cover Based on Oblique Photogrammetric Data

A Rapid Extraction Method for Information on Complex Urban Land Cover Based on Oblique Photogrammetric Data