Examining urban sprawl in Europe using spatial metrics

Abstract

Urbanisation is a global phenomenon with an important impact on the quality of human life. Europe has been widely affected by urbanisation. One of the main characteristics of urban growth is sprawl, a negative form of urban expansion, which affects large cities and most types of urban landscapes. Spatial indicators are applied to CORINE Urban Morphological Zones (UMZ) changes in order to measure urban sprawl between 1990–2000 and 2000–2006 in 24 European countries. The indicators calculate urban morphological properties such as shape, aggregation, compactness and dispersion. The results revealed that the urban areas (UMZ) increased by 146% during 1990–2006 and the urbanisation becomes more circle-shaped and less complex where mostly sprawl occurs. Moreover, urban form becomes less clumped or aggregated. Therefore, due to accelerating rates of urban sprawl, European urban planning should intensify appropriate initiatives to avoid negative impacts on human life.

Keywords:

• urban sprawl
• spatial metrics
• Urban Morphological Zones
• Growth Zones
• CORINE

Acknowledgements

The research presented here was supported by the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (IKY Fellowships of Excellence for Postgraduate Studies in Greece – Siemens Program, Contract No.: SR22020/13). CORINE is a property of EEA.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.