Assessing urban spatial patterns within the implemented urban planned areas using GIS and remote sensing data

In the developing world, including Sub-Saharan Africa, reports have indicated that urban planning as a strategic instrument has not been able to guide urban spatial patterns and this poses challenges to improving urban environmental sustainability. The current study combined a city land use plan, Geographical Information Systems, and remotely sensed data to evaluate urban spatial patterns within areas where the city plan is reported to have been implemented to support strategic actions for urban environmental sustainability. Focusing on Abuja city, Nigeria, the study deployed a supervised classification on Landsat 8 remotely sensed data to analyze spatial patterns of urban land cover types, computed transition change detections and compared the urban impervious surface to the area of land designated for urban development by the city plan. Key findings indicated that the land areas designated for urban development have not been fully developed and the transition from urban green space is the highest transition from other land cover types to urban impervious surface. The baseline information provided in this study is crucial to inform decision-makers on improving and maintaining the implementation of strategic actions for urban environmental sustainability in Sub-Saharan African cities and other parts of the developing world.