Spatiotemporal Analysis of Land Use/Land Cover Change and Urban Sprawl using GIS and Remote Sensing: The Case of Bahir Dar City, Ethiopia
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Date
2024-01
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Spatiotemporal analysis is a method used in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing to analyze changes in land use and land cover over specific time. This study was conducted to produce maps of the spatiotemporal changes over the study area from 2002 to 2022, quantify gain and losses of land use/land cover (LULC) classes, examine land use transitions, assess spatial trends of changes, and analyze the extent and patterns of urban sprawl over the study area. The LULC classes include Bare Land, Crop Land, Vegetation Area, Water Body, and Buildup Area. According to the analysis, the area of built-up land was increased time to time from 2002 to 2022, more than doubling in size, which increased from 1253.951 ha to 5519.19 ha. This indicates substantial urbanization and infrastructure development during the study period. With decrease in cropland and bare land but significant growth in built-up areas. To some extent, there was an increment of Vegetation area but water bodies remained relatively the amount of coverage area decrease in the first three consecutive period. Overall, the study highlights significant shifts in land use land cover over the 20-year timeframe. Moreover, the urban expansion intensity index analysis reveals fluctuations in the rate of urban expansion over the years, with periods of limited growth followed by accelerated expansion and then a slowdown. The urban expansion rates for the periods 2002-2007, 2002-2012, 2002-2017, and 2002-2022 were 4.204%, 10.763%, 7.332%, and 7.632%, respectively, these rates indicate fluctuations in urban growth within the region over the years.
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Keywords
Geographic Information Systems (GIS), land use land cover, Remote Sensing, Spatiotemporal analysis, urban expansion, urban sprawl.