Remote sensing analysis for urban expansion in Mazar-e-Sharif, Balkh, Afghanistan

Abstract

Urbanization leads to urban expansion and it is an indicators of economic and development growth in a country. Mazar-e-Sharif, as the capital city of Balkh province in Northern Afghanistan has witnessed an enormous urban expansion via development in building and road construction, industrialization, and other anthropogenic activities since 2001. Thus, this study attempt to employ geospatial technology applications to determine the extent of urban expansion in study area with the aid of LULC change detection techniques and multi-temporal satellite imageries. To be specific the objectives are: (1) to identify the patterns of urban expansion in Mazar-e-Sharif. (2) to analyze the LULC changes using (LULC) change detection techniques and (3) to recommend the use of LULC change detection as a practical method to quantify, detect and monitor the urban expansion with the aid of geospatial technologies in urban land use planning practice in Afghanistan. This study uses two satellite images for LULC change detection analysis and the images were classified and analyzed based on land categories of Built-up area, greenery and Barren land. The results shows that, greenery land cover has decreased drastically from 21 % in 2001 to 11 % in 2019, while built-up area increased form 8.5 % in 2001 to16.3 % in. The analysis has shown that urban expansion has involved of internal reorganization and outward expansion of the urban areas and greenery areas shrunk towards the remote areas. The model of built-up expansion took the form of radiation centered in the center of the city and extended outward along the major traffic routes and mostly towards the East and North-West. The causes of this changes are, population growth, socio-economic activities and rapid urbanization. Apart from the derived results, this study also shows the potential of remote sensing and GIS techniques for the analysis of urban growth patterns. It was concluded that, proper measures should be taken in accordance with scientific planning for the urban expansion of the city in the future.