Landscape Effects of Urban Sprawl: Spatial and Temporal Analyses Using Remote Sensing Images and Landscape Metrics

This study intends to identify both general trends and subtle patterns of urban land changes of the past three decades in metropolitan Kansas City area. Landsat images were used to generate time series of land cover data from the early 1970s to the early 2000s. Based on remotely sensed land cover data, landscape metrics were calculated. Both the remotely sensed data and landscape metrics were used to characterize long-term trends and patterns of landscape effects of urban sprawl. Land cover change analyses at the metropolitan, county, and city levels reveal that over the past three decades the significant increase of built-up land in the study area was mainly at the expense of non-forest vegetation cover. The spatial and temporal heterogeneity of land cover changes allowed the identification of the built-up land spread patterns. The landscape metrics were analyzed to quantify the fragmentation of land covers and degrees of urban built-up activities across the study area.