Spatial Monitoring of Urban Expansion Using Satellite Remote Sensing Images: a case Study of Amman City, Jordan

Figure 10. The spatial development of Amman’s urban area between 1987 and 2017. 
Another significant change is the continuing decline in the vegetation class in the studied area 
(Figure 11). In 1987, the vegetation class occupied 35.22 km
2
, which decreased to 16.40 km
2
by 2017, 
signifying a decrease of 18.82 km
2
; this represents a decrease of 53.54% (Table 2). Similarly, the 
exposed rocks class and exposed soils class declined between 1987 and 2017 by about 24 km
2
and 
about 48 km
2
, respectively (Figure 11). 
1987
1997
2007
2017
147.08 195.98 214.94 237.86
0
50
100
150
200
250
Square 
Km
Year
Urban Class
1987
1997
2007
2017
35.22
28.25
23.71
16.4
0
10
20
30
40
Square
Km
Year
Vegetation Class
1987
1997
2007
2017
54.33 45.85 37.41 30.34
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Square 
Km
Year
Exposed Rocks
1987
1997
2007
2017
521.94 488.48 482.50 473.96
440
460
480
500
520
540
Square
Km
Year
Exposed Soils
Figure 11.
Changes in the urban area, vegetation, exposed rock, and exposed soil classes between 1987
and 2017.
4.2. Urban Growth Analysis (1987–2017)
Table
3
shows the annual urban growth percentage rate (K). K is a key index for evaluating urban
growth, and is defined as follows [
33
]:
K
=
Ub − Ua
Ua
!
×
1
T
× 100%
(1)
where K is the annual urban growth percentage rate, Ua and Ub represent the urban area at the
beginning and end of the monitoring period, respectively, and T is the period of time from time a to b.