Identification of the Development of Suburban New towns Using Satellite Images: A Case Study of the Keihanna District in the Kansai Metropolitan Area, Japan

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  • 衛星画像でみる京阪奈丘陵の開発
  • エイセイ ガゾウ デ ミル ケイハンナキュウリョウ ノ カイハツ

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<p>In this paper, we used multi-temporal satellite images to highlight the land development for creating suburban new towns near Osaka metropolitan area in the recent decades. The study area called Keihanna which is hilly in topography and was once covered by forests, is located within the triangle cornered by Osaka, Kyoto and Nara. The images we used are of LANDSAT data acquired on April 14, 1978 (MSS), May 31, 1989 (TM) and August 25, 2000</p><p>(ETM+). The topographical background of the study area is shown in Figure 1, which shows geomorphologic (DEM) model draped by true color image of LANDSAT of 1989. The change in the land cover between 1978 and 2000 is highlighted in Figure 4, which is composed by overlaying images of the three years. The visible red band images of 1978, 1989 and 2000 are assigned to blue, green and red channels to create the composite color picture. Since forests look dark in the images of visible red band while bare lands under construction look bright, we can suppose that the changes in tone on the image reflect land cover changes. Therefore, we can guess that areas highlighted in green are newly developed sites in 1989 while areas highlighted in red are newly developed sites in 2000.</p><p>In this case, large scale developments are performed by destroying forests covering hilly areas to create new residential growth. Therefore, the change in the land cover (Figure 5) is similar to the pattern of population growth</p><p>(Figure 6) in the Keihanna district. The main residential areas are located to the north of Nara city and Ikoma city.</p><p>We presented spatio-temporal visualization of the land cover change which occurred in the periphery of the Osaka metropolitan area. It might be interesting to examine the relationships between occurrence of large scale developments and quantitative geomorphologic indices such as relief energy or gradient. Because of the defects of the DEM used, we cannot implement that examination. We can conclude that multi-temporal satellite images provide us with useful insights into the physical aspects of changes caused by metropolitan urbanization.</p>

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  • Urban Geography

    Urban Geography 4 (0), 20-27, 2009-03-15

    The Japanese society of Urban Geography

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