Mapping and monitoring of land use land cover (LULC) changes in Amman city are important for sustainable regional development, urban planning, and environmental and land use management. To comprehend the temporal and the spatial variability of LULC change, six time-period satellite images of the study area have been examined based on remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) techniques. The changes in LULC patterns of Amman city were monitored for the periods 1990-1995, 1995-1999, 1999-2004, 2004-2013, 2013-2017 and 2017-2022. Employing Spatio-temporal Landsat TM and ETM imagery acquired from 1990 to 2022 to comprehend, detect, and quantify the spatial pattern of urban sprawl. Supervised classification was used to extract built-up areas and measure changes in urban land-use class across the metropolis. The result of the urban expansion intensity index shows that urban expansion hits its peak between 2013 and 2017, with a 1.75 index resulting in high-speed development between the time frames. Shannon’s entropy approach was quantified to detect the urban sprawl phenomenon. The results showed that the Relative Shannon entropy values are above 0.5, indicating dispersedly spread-urban sprawl. Land Absorption Coefficient (LAC) and Land Consumption Ratio (LCR) were also used. A strong positive correlation between road networks and urban sprawl (0.7) indicates that urbanization plays a major role in the occurrence of urban sprawl. The findings obtained from this work would provide urban planners and decision-makers in Amman the tools and data they need, to implement planning interventions for sustainable future development and to mitigate the impacts of urban sprawl on different aspects on the environment.

Cities urgently need effective policies and plans for strategic urban development that can slow down uncontrolled urban growth. Due to the implementation of numerous sustainable urban development policies throughout the Middle East over the past twenty years, sustainable urbanization is now more widely acknowledged. Some of these policies and methods have been found to be successful in improving the sustainability of cities. Amman’s plans to develop the city have been in the process like that of 2025 as a master plan, and these were drafted in 2006 and 2008. However, its growth has been affected by the issue of increased urbanization or urban/suburban sprawl, hence limiting sustainable development. The researcher used the analytical approach to mobilize the critical literature review, this paper has conducted a comprehensive study on the best practices of sustainable urbanization policies in the Middle East. Best practice methods and results have been identified. The results were also presented in different Middle Eastern regions in cities such as Cairo and Istanbul. Considering the effects of urbanization and urban sprawl and its mitigating measures, this paper can be regarded as foundational research in evaluating the relationship between policy implementation and urban environmental management. Future studies should investigate the impacts of urbanization on land use and land cover changes in the city of Amman and their effect on the environment.

Purpose: Urban sprawl can cause an increase in economic development, and as a result, it is followed by increased consumption of energy, waste generation, urbanization, and reduced green land. In this sense, the current study aims to investigate the impacts of urban sprawl on environmental pollution, in terms of CO2 emissions, while considering other control variables. Further, this study explores the relationship between population growth and agricultural land and energy consumption, in the period between 2008 to 2020, in Amman city.   Method/design/approach: This study employs the STIRPAT model and the panel unit root test, and the panel cointegration test (ADF), in order to investigate the effect of urban sprawl on the emissions of CO2.   Theoretical framework: Urban expansion is a low-density, dispersed, and poorly planned form of spatial growth that has a number of detrimental effects on the quality of the environment.   Results and conclusion: The results describe that waste generation, economic development, and urbanization had negative impacts on CO2 emissions.    Research implications: The findings indicated the influence of urban growth on the consumption of energy and agricultural land in Amman.   Originality/value: This work can provide possible solutions to reduce the impacts of urban sprawl on the environment through implementing regulations and policies and re-adjustment of urban land use in an efficient manner.