Principles and Applications of the Global Human Settlement Layer as Baseline for the Land Use Efficiency Indicator—SDG 11.3.1

Melchiorri, Michele; Pesaresi, Martino; Florczyk, Aneta J.; Corbane, Christina; Kemper, Thomas

doi:10.3390/ijgi8020096

Cited by 106 publications

(89 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Firstly, the observed annual growth rate of 5.3 per cent for the built-up class in the study area surpassed the urban population growth rate estimated at 2.3 per cent between 1998 and 2018 [10,11]. This means that the urban growth in Blantyre City, with a land consumption ratio of 2.3, is becoming more expansive than compact [46]. This kind of growth creates profound repercussions for environmental sustainability in the city and also prevents the city from enjoying high social interaction due to close integration of communities, and easy access to social-economic facilities [47].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

An Analysis of Urban Land Use/Land Cover Changes in Blantyre City, Southern Malawi (1994–2018)

2020

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Rapid and unplanned urban growth has adverse environmental and social consequences. This is prominent in sub-Saharan Africa where the urbanisation rate is high and characterised by the proliferation of informal settlements. It is, therefore, crucial that urban land use/land cover (LULC) changes be investigated in order to enhance effective planning and sustainable growth. In this paper, the spatial and temporal LULC changes in Blantyre city were studied using the integration of remotely sensed Landsat imageries of 1994, 2007 and 2018, and a geographic information system (GIS). The supervised classification method using the support vector machine algorithm was applied to generate the LULC maps. The study also analysed the transition matrices derived from the classified map to identify prominent processes of changes for planning prioritisation. The results showed that the built-up class, which included urban structures such as residential, industrial, commercial and public installations, increased in the 24-year study period. On the contrary, bare land, which included vacant lands, open spaces with little or no vegetation, hilly clear-cut areas and other fallow land, declined over the study period. This was also the case with the vegetation class (i.e., forests, parks, permanent tree-covered areas and shrubs). The post-classification results revealed that the LULC changes during the second period (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018) were faster compared to the first period (1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007). Furthermore, the results revealed that the increase in built-up areas systematically targeted the bare land and avoided the vegetated areas, and that the vegetated areas were systematically cleared to bare land during the study period . The findings of this study have revealed the pressure of human activities on the land and natural environment in Blantyre and provided the basis for sustainable urban planning and development in Blantyre city.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

An Analysis of Urban Land Use/Land Cover Changes in Blantyre City, Southern Malawi (1994–2018)

2020

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“…The 2030 Development Agenda has devoted a specific goal to cities, which aims to "make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable" [3,39]. Understanding the urbanization processes might help to achieve the goal.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Interannual Urbanization of China’s Six Megacities Since 2000

Zhang

Liu

et al. 2019

Remote Sensing

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As a large and populous developing country, China has entered the rapid urbanization stage since 2000. Until 2018, China has accounted for nearly 1/5 of global megacities. Understanding their urbanization processes is of great significance. Given the deficiencies of existing research, this study explored the interannual urbanization process of China's six megacities during 2000-2018 from four aspects, namely, the basic characteristics of urban land expansion, expansion types, cotemporary evolution of urban land-population-economy, and urbanization effects on the local environment. Results indicated that (1) urban lands in China's six megacities increased by 153.27%, with distinct differences across megacities; (2) all of six megacities experienced the expansion processes from high-speed to low-speed, but they varied greatly in detail; (3) the speeds of urban land expansion in China's megacities outpaced the population growth but lagged behind in GDP increase; and (4) urbanization has triggered an environmental crisis, which is represented by the decline in vegetation coverage and the increase in land surface temperature in newly expanded urban lands. This study enriched the content of urbanization, supplemented the existing materials of megacities, and provided a scientific reference for designing rational urban planning.Despite conducting denser social activities and causing more drastic urban sprawl effects than other medium-and small-sized cities [9], megacities must face more serious eco-environment problems, such as air pollution [10,11], flood disaster [12,13], and cropland losses [14], which have been proven to reflect the urbanization characteristics of a country or region better [15].Urbanization hotspots are expected to emerge in developing countries in the next several decades of the 21st century [1]. As a large and populous developing country with nearly 1/5 of the megacities worldwide, China has experienced significant urbanization at an increasing rate of 232.48% since the implementation of the Reform and Opening-up Policy in 1978 and the country has entered into the rapid expansion stage since 2000 [16]. Therefore, China is a good research area for investigating the urbanization process. During the past decades, urban expansion in China has been thoroughly investigated by using remote sensing technology. These studies have identified the following features. (1) Research objects ranged from a single city (i.e., Beijing [5], Shanghai [17], Harbin [18], Guangzhou [19], Nanjing [20], etc.) to urban aggregations (i.e., Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei [21], Pearl River Delta [22], Yangtze River Delta [23], etc.). However, limited investigations have been conducted on China's six megacities.(2) Research approaches included but not limited to various classification models (i.e., supervised or unsupervised classification, artificial neural network, etc.) and analysis methods (i.e., spatiotemporal dynamics, sprawl patterns, etc.). However, urbanization is a comprehensive process involving both physical morphology and ...

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“…presented at the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development 2018, a concise list of country practices and reports of SDG 11.3.1 monitoring (including France, Italy, Colombia and the United Kingdom), and a few peer-reviewed research articles on methodological perspectives and quantitative results on 11.3.1 case study monitoring at the national level [65] and global scale [66]. National reporting from data-rich parties underlines the heterogeneity in the selection of input data and time spans to quantify the indicator, while reporting from the Global South is still in the exploratory phase.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The scientific community provides empirical results, critical reviews and scientific advice for improving SDG monitoring. The main documentation and reporting on SDG 11.3.1 includes a training module produced by UN-Habitat on "Land Consumption" (with methodological insights, proposed data sources and hints to interpret results of calculations), a preliminary "Progress Report on SDG11" presented at the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development 2018, a concise list of country practices and reports of SDG 11.3.1 monitoring (including France, Italy, Colombia and the United Kingdom), and a few peer-reviewed research articles on methodological perspectives and quantitative results on 11.3.1 case study monitoring at the national level [65] and global scale [66]. National reporting from data-rich parties underlines the heterogeneity in the selection of input data and time spans to quantify the indicator, while reporting from the Global South is still in the exploratory phase.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These are identified by the Global Definition of Cities and Settlements which aspires to harmonize data collection for SDG reporting (currently developed by the European Commission and to which the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, and the United Nations Settlement Programme, UN-Habitat, voluntarily committed). The paper is developed using a methodology tailored to UNGGIM recommendations, which proposes a minimum set of assumptions to estimate LUE with GHSL [66].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multi-Scale Estimation of Land Use Efficiency (SDG 11.3.1) across 25 Years Using Global Open and Free Data

et al. 2019

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Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 aspires to “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”, and the introduction of an explicit urban goal testifies to the importance of urbanisation. The understanding of the process of urbanisation and the capacity to monitor the SDGs require a wealth of open, reliable, locally yet globally comparable data, and a fully-fledged data revolution. In this framework, the European Commission–Joint Research Centre has developed a suite of (open and free) data and tools named Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) which maps the human presence on Earth (built-up areas, population distribution and settlement typologies) between 1975 and 2015. The GHSL supplies information on the progressive expansion of built-up areas on Earth and population dynamics in human settlements, with both sources of information serving as baseline data to quantify land use efficiency (LUE), listed as a Tier II indicator for SDG 11 (11.3.1). In this paper, we present the profile of the LUE across several territorial scales between 1990 and 2015, highlighting diverse development trajectories and the land take efficiency of different human settlements. Our results show that (i) the GHSL framework allows us to estimate LUE for the entire planet at several territorial scales, opening the opportunity of lifting the LUE indicator from its Tier II classification; (ii) the current formulation of the LUE is substantially subject to path dependency; and (iii) it requires additional spatially-explicit metrics for its interpretation. We propose the Achieved Population Density in Expansion Areas and the Marginal Land Consumption per New Inhabitant metrics for this purpose. The study is planetary and multi-temporal in coverage, demonstrating the value of well-designed, open and free, fine-scale geospatial information on human settlements in supporting policy and monitoring progress made towards meeting the SDGs.

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Principles and Applications of the Global Human Settlement Layer as Baseline for the Land Use Efficiency Indicator—SDG 11.3.1

Cited by 106 publications

References 35 publications

An Analysis of Urban Land Use/Land Cover Changes in Blantyre City, Southern Malawi (1994–2018)

An Analysis of Urban Land Use/Land Cover Changes in Blantyre City, Southern Malawi (1994–2018)

Assessing Interannual Urbanization of China’s Six Megacities Since 2000

Multi-Scale Estimation of Land Use Efficiency (SDG 11.3.1) across 25 Years Using Global Open and Free Data

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