Urban and Peri-Urban Forest Areas in European Cities – A Comparative Remote-Sensing Study

Abstract

Urbanization is one of the most dynamic processes in the context of global change. Deforestation and an increase in land consumption are considered major drivers of shrinking green spaces in urban and peri-urban areas. Forest loss and gain for the period 2001 to 2014 were analysed for nine European cities and their surrounding areas on the basis of forest-cover change data. Urban footprints as a crucial part of research were derived using object-oriented classification techniques. Based on the classified patterns of urban green space, the extent of spatial growth is analysed and compared in order to derive long-term trends and characteristics for the cities under consideration. The Landsat satellite imagery analysis for built-up areas, in four time steps (for the years 1975, 1990, 2000 and 2010), in combination with tree-cover change data from 2001 to 2014, enables a spatiotemporal analysis. This comparative study aims to identify similarities and differences in the spatial distribution of urban and peri-urban forest areas and spatial urban growth patterns of cities located in Eastern and Western parts of Europe. The results show very similar patterns of shrinking urban green space in cities in both regions of Europe. But the analysis also shows that spatial pattern and magnitude of urban growth and open land consumption during the last two decades present significant differences between former eastern-bloc and western European cities