Combining Satellite Imagery and Spatial Analysis for Tracking Sustainable City Expansion in European Metropolises

Abstract

City expansion continues to create significant challenges for numerous European urban centers, leading to habitat loss, unequal access to resources, and suboptimal resource allocation. This research develops and tests a comprehensive strategy tool that supports the application of satellite imagery and mapping software for evaluating, examining, and regulating city growth. Imagery from Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 satellites helped examine shifts in terrain usage across six European metropolises—London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Rome, and Athens—spanning 23 years from 2000 to 2023. Guided categorization methods like Random Forest and Support Vector Machines, combined with landscape indicators such as Shannon's Diversity Index, Fragment Count, City Density Measure, and Proximity Evaluation, helped gauge the extent of expansion. An independently distributed survey gathered responses from 125 city designers and decision-makers to obtain numerical insights on community-economic drivers and strategy effectiveness. The analysis revealed substantial city growth, with Rome at the forefront with 24% and Berlin close behind at 23%, linked to demographic increases, business advancements, and urban development guidelines. Additionally, natural areas declined by 19.7%, while atmospheric contamination grew by 11.2%. Further community-economic concerns included heightened roadway backups (36%) and residence expenses (28%). The evaluated strategy tool demonstrated effectiveness in future projections and forward-looking terrain examination for balanced city advancement. Upcoming studies ought to incorporate automated learning systems and computational intelligence for enhanced terrain categorization and measuring metropolitan expansion.