REMOTE SENSING AND GIS TECHNIQUES FOR URBAN GROWTH MONITORING OF BASARAH CITY

Abstract

Basarah city has experienced a rapid urban expansion over the last decades dueto accelerated economic growth. This paper reports an investigation into the application ofthe integration of remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) for detectingurban built up growth for the period 1973 - 2002, and evaluate its impact on theenvironmental situation of Basarah city by analyzing the spatial distribution of urbanexpansion according to land cover types and normalized difference vegetation index(NDVI). The integration of remote sensing and GIS was found to be effective inmonitoring and analyzing urban growth patterns and in evaluating urbanization impact onsurface conditions of Baghdad area.