Multi-Temporal satellite imagery for infrastructure growth assessment of Dubai City, UAE

Sustaimanle Civil Infrastructure Systems Research Group, University of Sharjah, Sharjah City, United Arab Emirates

^* Corresponding author: mkhalil@sharjah.ac.ae

Abstract

Throughout the past few decades, Dubai City has witnessed massive growth in its urban area and infrastructure facilities. The discovery of oil and gas in the Emirate significantly played a role for such a rapid growth. Given this fact and the short time-period for such an expansion, it is crucial to develop an understanding of the patterns of the development in the City, where policy-makers, researchers, and concerned authorities would gain better vision and strategy for the future. Recent advances in satellite imagery in terms of improved spatial and temporal resolutions are allowing for efficient identification of change patterns and the prediction of areas of growth. This study aims to quantify and analyse the spatial–temporal urbanization that took place in Dubai City throughout the past decades (specifically from early 1970’s until 2015). Multi temporal satellite images with various geometric and radiometric resolutions will be utilized for this purpose. The suggested methodology consists of a sequence of image processing techniques that include supervised and unsupervised classification. Subsequently, the classified images were utilized to quantify the urbanization of the City. The results show that since 1970, the urbanization and population have been dramatically increased by 5 and 12 times respectively. The resulting trend can be potentially used to evaluate the consequences of massive urban development, such as City infrastructure, water, environmental and the social impact.