Spatial and temporal dynamics of urban sprawl in the Romanian Plain over the last century

摘要

The current study is a spatial and temporal assessment of urban sprawl dynamics, considered as akey parameter for quantifying urban sprawl. The assessment was carried out in a large geographical unit, i.e.Romanian Plain, located in the southern and south-eastern part of Romania and characterised by favourablenatural and socio-economic conditions for urban growth and sprawl over time. The authors carried out anhistorical evolution of the built-up areas in order to explain urban growth over the past century using differentcartographic materials (Austrian maps, 1912 and topographical maps, 1970) and Landsat satellite images(1990, 2002 and 2016). In order to identify and understand the spatial differentiations, the spatial and temporalstatistical analysis was performed for four time frames: 1912–1970, 1970–1990, 1990–2002 and 2002–2016.The results were quantified using two indicators able express the magnitude of the built-up areas expansion ateach LAU2 level: the Built-up Areas Expansion and the Annual Expansion Rate. Furthermore, in order todetect the geographical expansion trend of the built-up areas, the data on the annual expansion rate wereinterpolated using the global polynomial function. The spatial analyses revealed significant spatial differencesin the urban sprawl process during the analysed intervals in relation to the main triggering factors.