Combining Landsat and landscape metrics to analyse large-scale urban land cover change: a case study in the Jakarta Metropolitan Area

Abstract

This study tests the capacity of Landsat imagery and landscape metrics to explore spatial and temporal dynamics of urban expansion in Jakarta Metropolitan Area (JMA), Indonesia, over 23-year period (1994–2017). Results show that JMA’s urban area has doubled in size with average expansion of nearly 40 km² per annum, and urban area has grown into sparsely vegetated areas on the outskirts of Jakarta and along the east-west and southern corridors of JMA. Landscape metrics show that urban land cover has evolved into single-connected urban landscape in JMA’s core while more fragmented urban pattern in the inner and outer municipalities.

Keywords:

• Urban land cover change
• spatial pattern
• landscape metrics
• urban growth
• Jakarta Metropolitan Area (JMA)

Acknowledgements

We thank Stuart Phinn for the valuable comment on the earlier draft. The authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for the constructive suggestions and comments that improved the manuscript.