Assessment of the Temporal and Spatial Variations of Urban Development Using RS and GIS: A Case Study—Yasuj, Iran

• Published in: Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing 2019-07, Vol.47 (7), p.1163-1172
• Main Authors: Salamatnia, Arezoo, Jozi, Seyed Ali, Malmasi, Saeed, Nezakati, Roya, Zaeimdar, Mojgan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agricultural land; Agricultural management; Analytic hierarchy process; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Forests; Grasslands; Human settlements; Land use; Landsat; Landsat satellites; Rangelands; Remote sensing; Remote Sensing/Photogrammetry; Research Article; Satellite imagery; Settling; Spatial data; Urban areas; Urban development
• ISSN: 0255-660X; 0974-3006
• DOI: 10.1007/s12524-019-00973-z

The temporal-spatial change of cities is one of the main challenges of managers and decision makers in urban development. In the present study, a parameter related to the evaluation of the capability of Yasuj City was selected, classed, and weighed to determine a desired location for urban development. Accordingly, in order to determine fuzzy maps, all factors and sub-factors were weighed using the AHP and hierarchical technique. Then, the maps of each sub-factor were standardized in IDRIS environment and the considered layers were combined in GIS environment to determine the land suitability for urban development. Next, in order to evaluate the trend of temporal-spatial variation of land use around Yasuj City, the prepared images of the Landsat satellite as well as TM, ETM+ and OLI sensors in Envin 5.1 software related to 1986, 2001, and 2016, respectively, were employed. Finally, based on the changes in land use of Yasuj City, the residential or urban sections widely changed. The changes included different uses such as forests, grasslands, agriculture, and water corpuses. In 1986–2016, the results of changes in land use around the Yasuj City indicated 5% increase in the residential section and 3, 2 and 1% decrease in rangelands, agricultural lands, and water bodies, respectively. Forests, which are located in the outer and inner sections of Yasuj City, have a lot of ecological functions. With the high speed of city development, the ecological functions of forests are decreasing, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and therefore, should be taken into consideration. The results of this study, and the similar studies, indicated that spatial data, especially data related to human settlements (since they are highly changeable), are a good foundation for detailed planning. Such kind of data is also used since they are suitable tools for research purposes.