Drastic growth of urban populations has caused expansion of peri-urban areas—the transitional zone between a city and its hinterland. Although urbanisation may bring economic opportunities and improve infrastructure in an area, uncontrolled urban expansion towards peri-urban areas will negatively impact the environment and the community living within the area. Malaysia, for example, has become one of the most urbanised countries in East Asia. However, cities in Malaysia are relatively small and less densely populated compared with other cities in East Asia. This indicates that urban expansion has been sprawling towards peri-urban areas, and not being controlled and properly managed. To ensure urban expansions occur sustainably, urban growth boundary (UGB) can potentially be used as a mechanism to contain and limit urban expansion, and allow urban growth to be planned to achieve sustainable development. A scientific approach is essential to determine an UGB that allows future growth to be predicted and taken into consideration. Potentially, urban spatial models have been widely used to plan and predict future urban expansions. George Town Conurbation, the second largest urban conurbation in Malaysia, has been chosen as the study area in this study. This study aims to demonstrate the application of a GIS-Cellular Automata model, known as FutureSim, which was developed to simulate land cover changes and generate a designated UGB for this area. The model was developed based on the transition rule derived from land cover changes, from 2010 to 2018, and then used to predict future land cover changes under two different planning scenarios—compact growth and urban sprawl scenarios. With the accuracy of the model exceeding 74%, FutureSim was used to predict land cover change until 2030. The model can potentially be used to assist planners and policymakers to make decisions on the allocation of sustainable land use and planning for rapidly developing regions.

Urban expansion mapping is important in urban planning, land use and water resources management. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the spatio-temporal trends of urban expansion in Penang using three Landsat satellite images taken in 2004, 2011 Likelihood was used to classify the land uses into urban, agricultural, water, and forest. Comparison of the classified images with time-series Google Earth images and field data collection resulting an accuracy up to 90%. The results showed that urban have been expanded around 5% from 2004 to 2018. Major urban development is mainly found in the eastern part of Penang island. Meanwhile, major development in the Penang mainland can be found in the middle and western regions. Due to the limited development land on the Penang Island, a rapid urban expansion can be found in the south-western part of the Penang mainland that near to the second bridge. In order to maintain the city and community sustainability in Penang, government needs to plan on balanced socioeconomic growth for the near future.

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Abstract. Land use land cover change (LULC) is a dynamic process, which is largely influenced by anthropogenic effect. In less urbanized area, human activities such as agricultural expansion, timber extraction and infrastructure development, has caused LULC transformation at alarming rate. Understanding of the potential future LULC changes is necessary for town planners and local authorities to formulate and design town planning. Besides that, the projected LULC patterns could also be incorporated into other models to further evaluate the impact of LULC changes on environment, agricultural, ecosystem, water resources and health. This study projected a future LULC scenario of Kelantan, Malaysia, using an integrated GIS CA-Markov model. The model achieved an accuracy of 78.57% when compared with the LULC map of 2008. Built-up area has increased by 111 km2, while forest area has decreased 1532 km2 in the past 15 years. Results showed that the built-up area, oil palm, and rubber plantation are expected to increase to 181.69 km2, 2142.48 km2, and 3076.24 km2, respectively, in 2025. By contrast, forest and paddy area are projected to decrease to 8548.20 km2, and 693.44 km2 respectively. Urban expansion is mainly found in the northern part of the state, while oil palm expansion in the southern part of the state. It was predicted that this pattern will continue in the next thirty years where built-up and agriculture area continued to expand at the stake of forest area. The findings provide useful information for planners in planning for future development and safeguarding the environment.

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