Land Use and Land Cover Change Impact on Sustainability in the United Arab Emirates: A Big-Data Approach Using Google Earth Engine
Abstract
The relevance of land use and land cover change (LULCC) impact on sustainability and well-being is increasing due to the urban growth challenges. LULCC data offers significant insight into the historic development patterns and their relations to various sustainability indicators. Different from the previous LULCC studies that merely focused on investigating LULCC problems in a small area (e.g., a city of an urban area) within a short span of time (e.g., a year), the current study intends to assess the long-term urbanization trend within a 20-year period for a whole country through the tracking of LULCC changes within the period. Specifically, the Landsat satellite data was analyzed in Google Earth Engine to detect the characteristics of land elements and changes over the period. Then, LULCC was modeled as the predictor variable of a series of socio-economic factors (e.g., urban population, total population, GDP) and sustainability-related factors (e.g., emissions, energy use). Lastly, a Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework integrated with the investigated factors was proposed to enhance the understanding of how human-environment interactions impact sustainable decision making. The theoretical implications, methodological implications, implications for practitioners, research limitations, and future research directions are also addressed.
Subject Area
Environmental science|Middle Eastern Studies|Sustainability|Remote sensing
Recommended Citation
Atwah, Wissam, "Land Use and Land Cover Change Impact on Sustainability in the United Arab Emirates: A Big-Data Approach Using Google Earth Engine" (2021). ETD Collection for University of Texas, El Paso. AAI28865273.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/dissertations/AAI28865273