Urban sprawl analysis of the city of Kerman via remote sensing

Abstract

Objective: Over the past few decades, the increase of world’s urban population has resulted in uncontrolled urban expansions. Accordingly, determining urban development and sprawl should be taken into consideration. Methods: This article aims at measuring the level of urban sprawl of the city of Kerman using remote sensing data from period of 1352 to 1397. For this purpose, 10 remotely sensed images were selected with an acquisition date interval of 5 years and the pre-processing, proccessing and classification methods were applied to the RS images using ENVI software. Afterwards, for different periods, built-up areas were extracted and assessed by these three indices: “Degree-of-freedom”, “Degree-of-sprawl” and “Degree-of-goodness”. For better interpretation, the city was divided into 8 triangles with same area in line with 8 geographic directions. Results:The findings show that during 1392-1397, Kerman had the most growth of built-up areas while during 1372-1377 this growth had the minimum extent. Moreover, during these 45 years, the most growth of built-up areas were accrued at the western zone of the city while northern zone had the minimum growth. Nevertheless, as the matter of fact, during 1387-1392, the city had the most sprawl expansion, while during 1352-1355, it had the minimum extent. Furthermore, during these 45 years, the most sprawl expansion were accrued at the eastern zone of the city while northeastern zone had the minimum sprawl expansion. Conclusion: Broadly speaking, intensity of urban sprawl in the city of Kerman is explicit and indices of this study demonstrate it accurately.

Keywords

• urban sprawl
• urban growth
• remote sensing
• kerman city