Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Urban Growth and Expansion of Multan City During 1998- 2020

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine the land use changes in the Multan city between the years 1998 and 2020 based on digital classification and accuracy. Employing remote sensing and GIS strategies, the study aims at looks into the degree and pattern of urbanization and change in land use and coverage and to compare this type of area to non-urban areas. Initially, the LSF technique for classification was found to be inadequate for the purpose of classifying urban area and hence, necessity of switching to supervised classification. From all the above stated classifiers, the Maximum Likelihood classifier yielded best results. The evaluation that was conducted displayed an estimated urbanization growth of about 4%. The degree of urbanization rose from 47% to 46% in 2008-2018; urban area grew from 4 km² to 70. 3 km². This led to high urbanization causing change of land use from agriculture and forests to building and hence affecting the thermal characteristics of the region. Significantly, the study underscores the significance of record-keeping for proper land management, pointing out that better long-term planning for cities requires fresh census data and high-resolution aerial photos