Geoinformatics Engineering and GIS for Urban Growth Patterns Assessment

Abstract

Urbanization has profound effects on administrative boundaries, resulting in the expansion of urban areas, particularly at the periphery. This rapid growth leads to significant changes in landcover and land use, as agricultural and natural open areas are progressively transformed into densely populated urban landscapes characterized by housing, commercial infrastructure, and transportation systems. The capital city of Jordan, Amman, faces exceptional urban growth, with its population surpassing 4.5 million people. This unprecedented expansion has given rise to extensive urban landscapes, presenting challenges for planners who lack a holistic understanding of the wide-ranging impacts. To address these complexities and make well-informed decisions, planners urgently require comprehensive, up-to-date information on the causes, chronology, and consequences of urbanization. Integrating high-precision satellite imagery, geoinformatics data, and topographic insights offers a promising avenue to develop comprehensive inventories of urban change and growth. Such knowledge acts as a vital resource, enabling accurate assessments of expanding built-up areas and their associated implications. The use of high geometric resolution satellite imagery and geoinformatics data combined with topographic information and GIS could provide effective information to develop urban change and growth inventory which could be explored towards producing a very important signature for the built-up area changes.