2014 Volume 18 Issue 2 Pages 183-190
Recent studies have reported that urban land expansion rates are higher than population growth rates in many parts of the world, thus raising concerns about a variety of resource and environmental issues. Urban land expansion is characterized by its intensity as well as the area of its extent. Previous studies of urban sprawl have focused on the spatial patterns of urban expansion. This study takes a different approach by combining urban expansion intensity and the urban land ratio into a new index—the area-weighted urban expansion rate. The index was used for analyzing urban land expansion in the Taipei metropolitan region and for correlating the two elements of the index with population growth and density. The results showed that the index was able to distinguish between different stages of urban expansion in areas surrounding the core of the metropolitan region and that the correlations were capable of distinguishing older, more established urban areas along railways from younger, more dynamic urban areas along highways. The index provides a simple, yet useful tool for future studies of urban land expansion.
