Monitoring and modelling spatio-temporal urban growth of Delhi using Cellular Automata and geoinformatics

Assessing Riyadh’s Urban Change Utilizing High-Resolution Imagery

“…Thirdly, our analysis is the most recent to examine urban expansion in Riyadh, capturing change during a period of substantial population growth [31]. Our study is one of many concerned with utilizing remotely sensed data to better understand urban processes [21,22,50,51]. Our results were in line with the observations made by previous studies completed in Riyadh [9,32,36], which have all noted that Riyadh's urban areas have expanded.…”

“…First, our analysis found a substantial change in terms of urban areas, including for housing and roads, encroaching into the rural environment, as has been observed for other urban settings across the globe [2,3,21,22]. From our analysis and the initial view of what changed in Riyadh, the areas that have been newly occupied by impervious surfaces may be viewed as unproductive 'desert' land.…”

“…Secondly, there is a lot of work unfolding on understanding what changes in land cover within the world's major cities may mean for future growth [7,8,21,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. In this sense, we view our work as a first step for Riyadh, and envision that a series of research activities aimed at understanding how the city has grown and what this may mean for the trajectory of growth in the future, particularly considering that it is one of the Middle East's largest cities [32], will be a subject that will attract our attention.…”

“…Simultaneously, the scientific community has developed data analysis methods and tools that have allowed for the extraction of timely information on urban processes [2,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. In fact, the availability of data and methods for urban landscapes is now providing scholars with the ability to use spatially referenced data and analysis methods to predict urban change processes [21], and to respond to challenges related to environmental and ecological sustainability within urban centers [22]. However, while significant progress has been made in mapping urban changes and predicting urban growth [20], the diversity of urban processes seen across the globe and the factors that drive urban change have left several geographical areas underexplored.…”

“…Due to the physical and morphological conditions, economic state, population growth, political situation, policies, and social behaviors that vary from one region to another, predicting patterns of urban growth is complicated [25]. Nevertheless, significant progress has been made in understanding urban processes, including the importance of performing spatiotemporal analyses of urban growth to understand the characteristics and consequences of growth and how this is manifested from one location to another [8,21,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. One of the critical factors that have emerged from recent studies in urban processes and change is that in trying to understanding future growth within urban centers, it is critical to first understand and document the physical conditions within a city.…”