Growth in urban extent and allometric analysis of West African cities. Issue 2 (4th May 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Adhikari, Pradeep; de Beurs, Kirsten M.
• Is Part Of: Journal of land use science. Volume 12:Issue 2/3(2017)
• Page Start: 105
• Page End: 124
• Publication Date: 2017-05-04
• Subjects: Urban extent -- urban built-up -- Landsat -- West Africa -- allometric analysis -- urban scaling; Land use -- Periodicals; 333.7313
• DOI: 10.1080/1747423X.2017.1280550
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1747-423X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Urban area expansion is happening at much faster rates in Asian and African cities than elsewhere in the world. This study uses multi-temporal Landsat images to map the urban extent of six small to large cities in West Africa at four different time steps from the early 1970s–2010. The selected cities are Kumasi of Ghana, Daloa of Cote d'Ivoire, Abuja and Kano in Nigeria, Kindia of Guinea, and Ouagadougou of Burkina Faso. All cities revealed significant urban growth in both urban area and population; however, it was apparent that there was a lot of variability in urban area development. Exponential urban growth rates in the cities were measured as ranging between 0.026 and 0.077, with allometric scaling factors matching those of other countries.