The Use of the CORINE Land Cover (CLC) Database for Analyzing Urban Sprawl

Abstract

Urban sprawl is generally defined as the urbanization of space adjacent to a city, which results from that city’s development. The discussed phenomenon involves land development, mainly agricultural land, in the proximity of cities, the development of infrastructure, and an increase in the number of residents who rely on urban services and commute to work in the city. Urban sprawl generates numerous problems which, in the broadest sense, result from the difficulty in identifying the boundaries of the central urban unit and the participation of local inhabitants, regardless of their actual place of residence, in that unit’s functional costs. These problems are associated not only with tax collection rights but with difficulties in measuring the extent of urban sprawl in research and local governance. The aim of this study was to analyze the applicability of the CORINE Land Cover (CLC) database for monitoring urbanization processes, including the dynamic process of urban sprawl. Polish cities with county rights, i.e., cities that implement independent spatial planning policies, were analyzed in the study to determine the pattern of urban sprawl in various types of cities. Buffer zones composed of municipalities that are directly adjacent to the central urban unit were mapped around the analyzed cities. The study proposes a novel method for measuring the extent of suburbanization with the use of the CLC database and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools. The developed method relies on the overgrowth of urbanization (OU) index calculated based on CLC data. The OU index revealed differences in the rate of urbanization in three groups of differently sized Polish cities. The analysis covered two periods: 2006–2012 and 2012–2018, and it revealed that urban sprawl in the examined cities proceeded in an unstable manner over time. The results of the present study indicate that the CLC database is a reliable source of information about urbanization processes.

Degradation of Coastlines under the Pressure of Urbanization and Tourism: Evidence on the Change of Land Systems from Europe, Asia and Africa

“…There are potential problems associated with CLC data, applicable to this study, due to the misclassification and differences in the classification schemes and resolutions from one period to another [90,[92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100][101][156][157][158], but also due to the different resolutions (e.g., the CLC dataset has a minimum mapping unit for status layers of 25 hectares, while, minimum the mapping unit for CLC is 5 hectares). Nevertheless, CLC data have proved their usefulness in analyzing urban sprawl [159] and other LCLU changes in Europe [160,161] and even outside the European Union [162], and even in fostering local development [163]. Obviously, the existence of a GIS-ready data set is important in the research economy and could reduce other sources of errors, but does not make the case studies of Vietnam or Algeria less valuable, since they rely on satellite imagery.…”

“…These data would have been suitable for analyzing the urban sprawl if their time frame was correlated with the pace of changes [94,98], but unfortunately the data is collected each 6 years, a time that does not fit the alert pace of urban changes. However, CLC data offer satisfactory solutions for looking at the urban sprawl, if certain mathematical adjustments are performed [93,94,150,159].…”

Hybridization of valuation procedures as a medicine supporting the real estate market and sustainable land use development during the covid-19 pandemic and afterwards

“…They can support ongoing documentation of field work, e.g. investments, inventory of boundaries, construction of the DTM / DEM (digital terrain model / digital elevation model) ( Ossowski et al, 2019 ; Cieślak et al, 2020b ) and even measurements of fuel storage facilities. Due to the cost and time of preparation of the raid/flight, the implementation is carried out today primarily for large area investments.…”

Revisiting the Urban Definition for the Island of Mauritius

“…One such tool is the CORINE (Coordination of Information on the Environment) Land Cover program, being used to map urbanisation in Europe. A study carried out in Poland using CORINE was able to identify urban sprawl [13]. Thus, remote sensing provides the ability to monitor urban and rural systems at various spatial and temporal scales, making remote sensing one of valuable tools in addressing issues related to sustainable development [14].…”