Analysis of Urban Sprawl Using Geographical Information System (GIS) Techniques; A Case Study in Erbil City-Kurdistan of Iraq

Urban sprawl is one of the main threats in the city, and the present study focuses on the discussion and investigation of urban sprawl. Urban sprawl impacts the environment and agricultural fields in Erbil. The city has witnessed a remarkable rapid increase in population and urbanization at the expense of agricultural and pastoral lands, political, economic, and social factors. All these factors led to prevent the city from becoming green, which resulting in some issues like economic, social, and environmental. The most essential application of (GIS) technology is urban sprawl monitoring. It helps to determine the direction of expansion of urban areas, its pattern, and finding the most suitable sites for further urban development.  (GIS) spatial analysis covered the geo-processing application, which is the classification of maps of Erbil to detect the change detection (LULC) through two periods, 2010 to 2018. It is to discover how much the city has changed and improved over the selected years. The changes and developments that happened over the passing years illustrated in the figures and tables in the results and discussion sections. The purpose of this study is to recommend organized solutions for the unlimited growth of urbanization. The results showed the Landsat and Satellite Images of Erbil city due years 2010 and 2018 using ArcGIS Pro. Geo-referencing and digitizing the maps of Erbil gave the spatial data surveying as a result for analyzing the changes and comparing them due to the specified years to see the differences that happened to the city. Furthermore, as a result, the vacant land area decreased by 33.20%, whereas the urban area increased by 15.86% from 2010 to 2018.