Land Use Geospatial Indices (LUGI) for measuring urban sprawl in established urban : a case study of Kuala Lumpur

Abstract

The term urban sprawl has a decades-long history in academic discourse, and yet there is still a lack of an integrated and comprehensive quantitative method to measure urban sprawl, especially in developing countries like Malaysia. Urban sprawl remains one of the unsolved urban issues and a major challenge for sustainable development concept. Many researchers have agreed that characterising urban sprawl using spatial measures requires the wide-ranging definition of urban sprawl principles. In this research, urban sprawl is defined as ineffective and dysfunctional urban growth that significantly interrupts the proper arrangement of land use, which in turn affects the sustainability of built environment elements, such as the degradation of the environment, and the deprivation of economic and social well-being. The aim of this research is to measure urban sprawl in the city of Kuala Lumpur city using five (5) components of Land Use Geospatial Indices (LUGI) with the application of remote sensing and GIS approach. The components of LUGI include i) segregated land use, ii) development planning consistency, iii) urban density, iv) strip development, and v) leapfrog development. The data used includes Landsat 5TM and Landsat 8 OLI-TIRS (30m resolution), as well as SPOT 5 and SPOT 6 (1.5m resolution) satellite images, which were used and combined with GIS database for change detection analysis and LUGI analysis. The city of Kuala Lumpur has been selected as a study area to examine the urban sprawl growth based on the land use patterns for the years 2005 and 2015. The urban sprawl measurement was conducted for each of Kuala Lumpur’s strategic planning zones (SPZ), namely i) Sentul-Menjalara, ii) Wangsa Maju-Maluri, iii) City Centre, iv) Bandar Tun Razak-Sungai Besi, v) Bukit Jalil-Seputeh and vi) Damansara-Penchala. The findings of the LUGI calculation prove that Kuala Lumpur is currently facing a high index of segregated sprawl due to previous land use and zoning regulations enforced by local authorities. Strip and leapfrog geospatial indices also scored high on the index of sprawling in Kuala Lumpur; however, its occurrence can be justified by the compact in-fill development trend in Kuala Lumpur. Thus, this research found out that strip and leapfrog geospatial indices are more practical to measure sprawl in developing or sub-urban areas compared to already developed areas. Lastly, the lowest land use sprawl scores in Kuala Lumpur are development planning consistency sprawl and urban density sprawl, indicating that these types of geospatial indices sprawl are less likely to occur in Kuala Lumpur due to the strong enforcement of development plan that emphasises high-density development. This research focuses on the smaller but highly developed urban context, namely the city of Kuala Lumpur, where it was found that only three out of five geospatial indices are suitable to measure the sprawl index on the city scale. Therefore, the research agreed that the integration of LUGI urban sprawl with remote sensing and GIS was able to measure the formation of land use sprawl in a wider urban context, such as in metropolitan areas like Greater Kuala Lumpur that are currently going through a rapid development process. The research on the urban land use sprawl will give an opportunity for stakeholders to determine measures to be taken in solving urbanisation issues. Present research on the spatial analysis of remote sensing and GIS technology in urban planning has provided a new direction, not only in urban sprawl studies, but also complimenting urban indicators in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal, which is to “make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”.