Urban Sprawl Mapping Using Spatial Metrics Method

This study was conducted on Addis Ababa metropolitan area as a fulfillment for MSc degree from Addis Ababa University, with the objective of measuring urban sprawl. The researcher used spatial and zonal metric tools to study the form and pattern of urban development from categorical maps. In this study, ERDAS Imagine 14, FRAGSTATS 4.2, ZonalMetrics and ArcGIS 10.2 software programs were used for data processing and urban sprawl measurement. ERDAS Imagine software used for image preprocessing, enhancement, transformation, classification and accuracy assessment activities. FRAGSTATS applied to calculate selected spatial metric statistics to measure urban sprawl while ZonalMetrics Toolbox- a new open source python tool, applied to calculate spatial metrics at zonal level. Other materials, such as Garmin GPS 78 and digital camera were used for ground data collection for accuracy assessment of classified images. Therefore, the integration of GIS, Global Positioning System (GPS) and remote sensing along with spatial metric tools that play a great role in shaping and managing urban expansion was applied in this study.