Urban sprawl assessment and modelling of the Shahat City, Libya, using space data and GIS

Determining the spatio-temporal manners of urban sprawl is considered one of the most influential challenges in evaluating the present and future directions of the urban expansion issue. Random growth is considered as a kind of meeting the needs of the human being and expressing the achievement of its basic requirements when the state is unable to solve. This paper aimed to assess the sprawl and growth dynamics between 2010 and 2020 in Shahat City, Libya using remote sensing and GIS techniques. Three Landsat TM, ETM+, OLI images dated 2010, 2015, and 2020 were used to generate urban maps of the research area. Chi-square test and Urban expansion intensity index (UEI) were used to assess urban growth patterns in study zone. The results of the study confirmed that urban growth in the city has increase from 4.2 km2 in 2010 to 22.4 km2 in 2020. The results displayed that Shahat city has unbalance urban growth and its urban development had high freedom degree during period from 2010 to 2020.