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A Neural Network based Urban Growth Model of an Indian City

Article  in  Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing · September 2010

DOI: 10.1007/s12524-009-0041-7

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J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (September 2009) 37:363–376
RESEARCH ARTICLE
A Neural Network based Urban Growth Model of an Indian City
S. Maithani
Received: 25 March 2009 / Accepted : 27 March 2009
Keywords Spatial urban growth . Artificial neural network . Multilayer perceptron . Spatial metrics . Kappa
. Urban growth potential
Abstract The aim of the study reported in this
paper is to demonstrate that the subjectivity in urban
growth modeling and the calibration time can be
reduced by using objective techniques like Artificial
neural network (ANN). As a case study, the ANN-
based model was applied to simulate the urban
growth of Saharanpur city in India. In the proposed
model, remote sensing and GIS were used to generate
site attributes, while ANN was used to reveal the
relationships between urban growth potential and the
site attributes. Once ANN learnt the relationship, it
was then used to simulate the urban growth. Different
S. Maithani (
)
Human Settlement Analysis Division,
Indian Institute of Remote Sensing,
4, Kalidas Road, Dehradun – 248 001,
Uttarakhand, India
email : maithanis@yahoo.com
maithani@iirs.gov.in
feed forward ANN architectures were evaluated in
this study and finally the most optimum ANN
architecture was selected for future growth
simulation.
The simulated urban growth maps were evaluated
on a cell by cell matching using Kappa index and
three spatial metrices namely, Mean Patch Fractal
Dimension, Landscape Shape Index and Percentage
of like Adjacencies. The most optimal architecture
was then used subsequently for simulating the future
urban growth. The study results thus, demonstrated
that the ANN-based model can objectively simulate
urban growth, besides successfully coupling GIS,
remote sensing and ANN.
Introduction
The urban population of India increased from 217.6
million to 285 million in the last decade and presently
constitutes 27.8% of the total population (Census of
India, 2001), it is expected to increase to 40% of the
total Indian population by the year 2021 (GGIM,
364
2005). This increasing population pressure is leading
to unregulated growth of urban areas. The negative
impacts associated with the unregulated growth of
urban areas are namely, permanent loss of agricultural
land, reduced ground water infiltration, raised
greenhouse gas emissions, elevated air and noise
pollution levels, damage to various ecological cycles
etc. (Gowda and Sridhara, 2000; Kulshrestha, 2004,
2007a, 2007b; Tayal and Bharat, 1997). Faced with
these severe negative impacts, there is an urgent need
for urban planners to develop predictive models of
urban growth. These models not only provide an
understanding of the urban growth process, but also
provide realizations of the numerous potential growth
scenarios that an urban area may take in the future.
This kind of information can be very helpful, in
regulating urban growth and proper planning can
also be done for the future urbanizable areas.
Over the past few years, a number of models of
urban growth have been developed namely by,
White and Engelen, 1993, 1994, 1997; Barredo et al.,
2003, 2004; Wu, 1998a, 1998b, 1999, 2002; Wu and
Webster, 1998, 2000; Li and Yeh, 2000; Ward et al.,
2000. However, these models are based on
subjectively defined rules. The rules are based on the
expert’s experience of the subject and study area and
therefore, contain some bias towards the assumptions
made. Secondly, it is extremely time consuming to
find proper values for the model parameters during
the calibration process. To overcome these
limitations, an ANN-based model of urban growth
has been proposed in the present study. The aim of
the study is to demonstrate, that the subjectivity in
rule definition and model calibration can be reduced
by using Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). The
research also aims at demonstrating the use of remote
sensing and GIS as spatial data provider and spatial
data handler respectively in the proposed model. In
the proposed model, remote sensing data were used
to provide empirical data about urban growth and
other spatial information. GIS was used for handling
this spatial data and generating site attributes.
J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (September 2009) 37:363–376
Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was used to reveal
the relationships between future urban growth
potential and the site attributes.
The applicability of ANN-based urban growth
models to Indian cities has also been lacking. Hence,
as a case study, the ANN-based model was applied
to simulate the urban growth of Saharanpur city in
Uttar Pradesh state, India.
Artificial neural network
Artificial neural network (ANN) is a non-parametric
technique for quantifying and modeling complex
behavior and patterns. Unlike the commonly used
statistical methods, ANN has the following
advantages (Li and Yeh, 2001):
a. It makes no assumptions regarding the
distribution of the data.
b. Measurement data of different types can be
used.
c. They can solve highly nonlinear problems.
Since, urban growth is also a complex phenomena
in which a number of variables interact non-linearly
with each other, the application of ANN to model
urban growth appears quite logical.
In ANN, the basic processing elements are the
neurons that are arranged in different layers and work
in parallel to transform input data into output entities.
The neurons in each layer are connected to the
neurons in the next successive layer and each
connection carries a weight (Atkinson and Tatnall,
1997). This arrangement of neurons in layers and the
pattern of connection within and in between these
layers is called ANN architecture.
In the present study, a feedforward multilayer
perceptron (MLP) ANN architecture has been used
and is shown in Fig. 1. The MLP consists of three
types of layers, i.e., input, hidden and output layers.
The black circles in Fig. 1 represent the neurons, in
input, hidden and output layers, while the lines
J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (September 2009) 37:363–376
represent the weighted connections between neurons
in these different layers. Since the ANN architecture
used is a feedforward architecture, a link is only
allowed from a neuron in a layer to neurons in the
next subsequent layer. There are no interconnections
between neurons within the same layer or with
neurons in the preceding layers (Kavzoglu and
Mather, 2003). The ANN is described by a sequence
of numbers indicating the number of neurons in each
layer. For example, the ANN shown in Fig. 1 has a
4-5-1 architecture, i.e., it contains four neurons in the
input layer, five neurons in the hidden layer and one
neuron in the output layer.
Fig. 1 A feedforward MLP ANN architecture.
The neurons in the input layer only transmit data
to the next layer, while the hidden and output layer
neurons actively process the data. Each neuron in the
hidden and output layers responds to the weighted
inputs it receives from the connections to the neurons
in the preceding input layer. If i is the neuron in the
input layer and j is a neuron in the next layer, then
the weighted input (netj) that neuron j receives is
computed as,
net j = ∑ I i Wij (0 ≤ i ≤n) (1)
where,
Ii = input signal from neuron i
Wij = weight associated with connection
between neurons i and j
365
netj = weighted input at neuron j
n = number of neurons in the input layer
The neuron j generates an activation signal, in
response to the netj. The activation signal is generated
via a transfer function. Any differentiable non-linear
function can be used as a transfer function, but a
sigmoid function is generally used due to its useful
properties like monotonicity and continuity which
help in increasing the learning capacity of the ANN
(Haykin, 1999, Kumar, 2004; Sivanandam et al.,
2006). The sigmoid function constraints the ANN
output between 0 and 1.
The activation signal generated at neuron j
becomes the input to the neurons in the next layer.
Thus, all hidden and output neurons collect the
activation signals of the neurons in the previous layer
and then generate an output activation signal
themselves. This activation signal becomes the input
for neurons in the subsequent layers.
The number of neurons in the input layer depends
on the number of input data sources. The number of
hidden layers and their neurons are often determined
by trial and error or literature-driven thumb rules. The
number of neurons in the output layer depends on
the number of classes being mapped (Arora et al.,
1998, 2004; Kavzoglu and Mather, 2003; Kanungo
et al., 2006).
ANN training
In order to use the ANN for prediction purposes, the
ANN must be taught the characteristics of the dataset
being processed. This is called ANN training. Once
the ANN learns the characteristics of the dataset, the
ANN is considered as trained and the whole dataset
is passed through this trained ANN to generate the
output. A training dataset is usually employed for
training the ANN. The training dataset consists of
input values and the desired output values
corresponding to these input values. The desired
output values can be obtained from field, remote
sensing data and other secondary sources.
366
Although the ANN can be trained using a number
of training algorithms, in the present study, the
backpropagation (BP) learning algorithm proposed
by Rumelhart et al. (1986) has been used for training
the ANN due to its simplicity and wide applicability.
In the BP algorithm, the ANN weights are randomly
initialized and the training data are fed to the input
neurons. The hidden neurons collect the data from
input neurons and generate an activation signal as the
input to the next layer. The ANN outputs generated
at the output neurons, are compared with the desired
outputs. The error (difference) between the ANN
outputs and the desired outputs is back propagated
through the ANN and is minimized by updating the
interconnection weights between the layers. This
process of backpropogating the errors is repeated
iteratively with weights being recomputed in each
iteration, until the error falls below a predefined
threshold value. Thus, during training, the ANN
weights are continuously adjusted till they are
optimized (Haykin, 1999; Kumar, 2004).
In order, to evaluate the performance of the trained
ANN on an independent data set, a testing dataset is
also fed to the trained ANN. A minimal difference
between the overall accuracies obtained on the
training and testing datasets indicates that the
trained ANN has not only learned the data
characteristics, but also performed well on the unseen
data (testing data) (Kanungo et al., 2006). The best
ANN architecture is selected based on the minimum
difference between the overall accuracies obtained
on the training and testing datasets.
Since in the present study, a sigmoid activation
function was used, the ANN output values varied
from 0 to 1. The ANN values in the present case
represented the urban growth potential (UGP) at each
location in the study area. A value of 1 denotes
maximum potential for future urban growth while a
value of 0 denotes the minimum urbanization
potential for future urban growth. The intermediate
values between 0 and 1, indicate different potentials
for future urban growth.
J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (September 2009) 37:363–376
Study area
The study area consisting of Saharanpur city and its
surrounding areas covers an area of about 80 km2 and
encompasses the geographical extents, 29°55' N to
30°0' N latitude and 77°30' E to 77°35' E. The city
is located in the fertile tract of Upper Ganga-Yamuna
daob (tract of land between two confluent rivers) in
the western part of Uttar Pradesh State (India). The
city, besides being a major market of food grains also
acts as a service centre for the surrounding hinterland,
as it provides education and medical facilities. The
city is well connected by several roads and the
railways which provide transport to other important
cities and in its regional setting has a very significant
place as a transport node. Lately, due to the
emergence of several industries (e.g., paper,
strawboard, tobacco), the city has lost its agrarian
fabric and the growing numbers of its labour force
are presently employed in the secondary and tertiary
sectors. This development of industry and services
is attracting migrants not only from the city’s
hinterland but also from far away areas. As a result,
the city is expanding rapidly, onto the nearby
surrounding fertile agricultural lands (Subudhi, 1998;
Fazal, 2000). Hence, there is an urgent need to model
the growth pattern of the city, so that proper planning
measures can be taken for future urbanizable areas.
Data sources used for creating spatial database
of study area
Built-up/ non built-up maps
The remote sensing data used to produce the built-
up/non built-up area maps of the years 1993 and 2001
(Fig. 2a and 2b) consisted of aerial photographs
(1:10,000 scale) and remote sensing data acquired
by Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite 1C, PAN
sensor (1:12,500 scale) respectively. Both data
products were panchromatic, so the built-up area has
a blocky appearance with a light tone. The vegetated
J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (September 2009) 37:363–376
(a)
Fig. 2 Built-up/ non built-up areas in the years (a) 1993 and (b) 2001 as interpreted from remote sensing data.
areas have a light to dark tone with rough texture.
Bare soil has a very light tone, while the water bodies
have a dark tone. The overall accuracy of the 1993
and 2001 built-up/ non built-up maps prepared by
visual interpretation of the respective data products,
was 93% and 91% respectively.
Generation of road network map
A road network map depicting major and minor roads
was generated by a visual image interpretation of the
1993 aerial photographs. The guide map and master
plan of Saharanpur city were used as secondary data
sources.
Delineation of city core
The city core was demarcated after consultation
with the local planning authorities. Most of the
367
(b)
commercial and institution facilities in Saharanpur
city are located in the city core. This area constitutes
the old part of the city and has a very high built-up
area and population density.
Factors driving urban growth
In the present study urban growth was defined in
terms of increase in built-up area, over a period of
time. An urban growth map, depicting the increase
in built-up area during the 1993–2001 period was
derived from the built-up/ non built-up maps of the
years 1993 and 2001, using the overlay function of
ARC/INFO. A value of 1 was assigned to the cells,
which changed from non built-up to built-up during
1993–2001 and a value of 0 was assigned to cells,
which remained non-built during the 1993–2001
368
period. Analysis of the urban growth map for 1993–
2001 revealed that 630 hectares of land has changed
from non built-up to built-up during the period. Due
to the presence of a defense establishment, i.e.,
Remount Depot, in the east direction, the growth has
been restricted in this direction.
As accessibility to roads and higher level facilities
(mainly located in the city core) are important factors
driving urban growth, the urban growth pattern was
analyzed with respect to distance from roads and the
city core. After consultation with the local planning
authorities and based on field knowledge, buffer
zones of different distances were created around the
road network and the city core. These buffer zones
were overlaid with the urban growth map of the
1993–2001 period, in order to find out the spatial
distribution of urban growth in these different buffer
zones The results showed that 79% of the total urban
growth in 1993–2001 had taken place within a
distance of 400 meters from the roads. Similarly 90%
of the total urban growth in 1993–2001 has taken
place within a distance of 4000 meters from the city
core.
However, besides these two factors, the
accessibility to basic infrastructure facilities (i.e.,
water supply, sewerage, electricity, banks, shopping
centre, medical centre, etc.) also influences the urban
growth process (Paul and Bharat, 1997; Gupta and
Bawa, 2004; Gowda, 1998). Thus, urban growth in
the study area was defined as a function of the
following three factors (hereafter causative factors),
i) Accessibility to roads (connectivity is a major
factor affecting the urban growth process)
ii) Accessibility to the city core, (most of the
higher level facilities are located in the city
core).
iii) Accessibility to infrastructural facilities.
Raster maps corresponding to the three factors were
generated using the data layers generated in section
4. Standard GIS operations like Euclidian distance,
focal sum etc., were used to create these raster data
layers. The cell size of these raster maps was kept as
J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (September 2009) 37:363–376
20 meters. The cell size was kept as 20 meters as a
smaller cell size increased the map size and model
processing time, while a coarser cell size led to
generalization and loss of detail. The raster maps
generated corresponding to the three causative factors
are discussed below :
i) Accessibility to roads :
The accessibility to roads network was measured
in terms of Euclidian distance from the nearest road.
Raster maps depicting the Euclidian distance of each
cell from the nearest major and minor roads were
generated using the Euclidian distance function of
ARC/INFO GRID.
ii) Accessibility to the city core :
The accessibility to the city core was measured
in terms of Euclidean distance from the city core,
where most of the higher level commercial facilities
are located. A raster map depicting the Euclidian
distance of each cell from the city core was generated
using the Euclidian distance function of ARC/INFO
GRID.
iii) Accessibility to infrastructural facilities :
The accessibility to infrastructural facilities has
been measured in terms of:
a) Distance from existing built-up cell :
The cost of connecting to urban services (e.g.,
water supply, sewerage etc.) decreases with the
distance from existing built-up areas, as these basic
urban services are already present in existing built-
up areas. A raster map showing the Euclidean
distance of each cell from the nearest built-up cell
was generated using the Euclidian distance function
of ARC/INFO GRID.
b) Amount of built–up cells in the neighbourhood :
A larger proportion of built-up area in the
neighbourhood implies availability of localized
facilities, i.e., shopping centre, medical centre,
banking, post office etc., necessary to support the
population. A raster map showing the amount of
built-up in a 500-meter circular neighbourhood of
each cell was generated using the focal sum
function of ARC/INFO GRID. The size of 500-meter
J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (September 2009) 37:363–376
neighbourhood was decided after consultation with
the local planning authorities.
These five raster maps formed the spatial dataset
corresponding to the three causative factors. The five
maps were normalized from 0 to 1 by dividing each
value in the map by the maximum value contained
in the map. The maps were normalized so as to make
them compatible with the sigmoid activation function
used in the ANN.
Implementation of the ANN model
The proposed ANN model is based on the dichotomy
of built-up and non built-up areas. The model
simulated transition from non built-up to built-up
areas with no reverse process taking place. The ANN
processing was implemented using the Neural
Network Tool Box of MATLAB software. The
following steps were followed in the implementation
of the ANN model :
i) Generation of maps corresponding to factors
driving urban growth in study area
ii) Generation of maps depicting actual urban
growth in study area
iii) Generation of training and testing dataset
from the data created in step i) and ii)
iv) Design of ANNs with different network
architectures
v) Training and evaluation of ANNs
vi) Selection of optimal ANN architecture
vii) Masking of exclusionary areas
viii) Simulation of urban growth using the
optimal ANN architecture
i) Generation of maps corresponding to factors
driving urban growth in study area :
As discussed in section 5, urban growth in the
study areas was expressed as a function of the
following five raster maps,
1. Euclidian distance of each cell from the
nearest major road
2. Euclidian distance of each cell from the
nearest minor road
369
3. Euclidean distance of a cell from the nearest
built-up
4. Euclidian distance of each cell from the city
core
5. Amount of built-up in neighbourhood (500
metre)
ii) Generation of maps depicting actual urban
growth in study area :
An urban growth map depicting cells that transit
from non built-up to built-up area during 1993–2001
was generated using remote sensing data and GIS
tools as discussed in section 5.
iii) Generation of training and testing dataset :
Using ERDAS IMAGINE software, 1800
sampling points were selected from the urban growth
map of 1993–2001 period. The number of training
sample points was based on the heuristic 60 Ni (Ni
+1) given by Kavzoglu and Mather (2003), where
Ni is the number of input neurons. Since there are
five neurons in the input layer corresponding to the
five raster maps, so 1800 training sample points were
selected. Out of these 1800 sampling points, 900
points belonged to the urbanized category (cells
which transit from non built-up in 1993 to built-up
in 2001 and were assigned a value of 1) while 900
points belonged to the non-urbanized category (cells
which remained non built-up in 1993 and 2001 and
were assigned a value of 0). This was done so as to
ensure equal representation of both the classes. These
sample point coordinates were then imported into
Arc/Info for extraction of cell attributes that were
associated with these sampling points in the five
raster maps (the five raster maps are discussed in
section 5). The sample function of Arc/Info was used
for retrieval of the cell attributes. This dataset
consisting of 1800 sample points along with the
associated site attributes was used as the training
data.
Table 1 shows an example of the training dataset.
In the table the values under f1,f2,f3,f4 and f5
columns show the attributes value at a cell
corresponding to the five factors maps, while the
370
target value of 1 or 0 indicates whether the cell transit
from non built-up to built-up or remained non built-
up during the 1993–2001 period respectively.
Table 1 Example of training dataset consisting of cell attributes and the target value
f1 f2
Sample 1 0.132 0.407
Sample 2 0.015 0.343
Sample 3 0.015 0.390
Sample 4 0.009 0.409
Sample 5 0.009 0.402
In order to determine the generalization capability
of the ANN, a testing dataset of 1800 sample points
was also created in the same manner as the training
data set. However, the training and testing datasets
were mutually exclusive (Foody and Arora, 1997).
iv) Design of ANNs with different network
architectures :
In the present model a feed forward MLP ANN
architecture having one input layer, one or two hidden
layers and one output layer was used. The number
of hidden layers was kept as one or two as these are
sufficient for most of the classification like problems
(Kanellopoulos and Wilkinson, 1997; Arora et al.,
2004).
The input layer had five neurons corresponding
to the five raster maps (discussed in section 5). The
output layer had one neuron since in the output only
one class, i.e., the UGP at each cell in the study area
was being mapped. The value of the UGP varied from
0–1. A value of 1 indicated maximum potential for
transiting from non built-up to built-up and a value
of 0 denoted minimum UGP. The intermediate values
between 0 and 1, indicated different potential for
transiting from non built-up to built-up.
The number of neurons in the hidden layers were
determined based on trial and error or literature
J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (September 2009) 37:363–376
driven thumb rules given by Kanellopoulos and
Wilkinson (1997), Hush (1989), Hecht-Nielsen
(1987), Wang (1994), Ripley (1993) and Paola
(1994).
f3 f4 f5 Target output
0.010 0.345 0.323 0
0.010 0.181 0.151 0
0.007 0.089 0.189 1
0.007 0.236 0.336 1
0.007 0.222 1
v) Training and evaluation of ANN :
There are a number of variants of the back
propogation algorithm available like, variable
learning rate, conjugate gradient, resilient
backpropogation, Quasi-newton and Levenberg-
Marquardt. In the present study, the Levenberg-
Marquardt algorithm which had the fastest
convergence was used for training the ANN. The
details of this algorithm can be found in Hagan and
Menhaj (1994) and Demuth and Beale (2003).
Different ANN architectures were trained using the
training data discussed in step (iii). The testing
dataset was also passed through each of the ANN
architectures, in order to determine the generalization
capability of the trained ANNs.
vi) Selection of optimal ANN architecture :
The ANN architectures, for which the difference
between the training and testing data accuracies was
minimum, were selected. Twelve ANN architectures
(Table 2) were selected based on the difference
between the training and testing data accuracies and
their respective network weights were stored.
vii) Masking of exclusionary areas :
The restricted areas, water bodies, public grounds
and gardens were treated as exclusionary zones as
they had no growth potential. Hence, these areas were
J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (September 2009) 37:363–376 371

Table 2 ANN architectures which gave the minimum Evaluation of model results
difference between the training and testing data accuracies

S No ANN Overall training Overall testing The twelve simulated urban growth maps for 1993–
architecture accuracy accuracy 2001 were evaluated by comparing them with the
actual urban growth map of 1993–2001, using Kappa
1 5-13-1 79.22% 75.28% coefficient and spatial metrics. The Kappa coefficient
2 5-15-1 67.94% 64.78% (Congalton, 1991) evaluated the simulated urban
3 5-17-1 76.94% 73.44% growth maps on the basis of cell by cell matching of
4 5-5-9-1 83.67% 81.11%
each map with the actual growth map. However, the
Kappa coefficient is based on independent
5 5-5-11-1 73.72% 70.39%
comparison between pairs of cells. Thus, small
6 5-6-5-1 79.33% 77.94% displacements between the actual and simulated
7 5-6-8-1 74.00% 69.28% urban growth maps are considered as errors and the
8 5-6-10-1 82.78% 79.67% same error is reported even if the displacement is of
9 5-7-6-1 71.17% 69.56% ‘n’ cells or one cell (Barredo et al., 2003). The Kappa
coefficient, therefore, was unable to take into account
10 5-7-7-1 90.56% 87.83%
the patterns or distribution of urban growth. As the
11 5-7-8-1 74.28% 69.67%
usefulness of any model is not in its “correctness” to
12 5-7-9-1 75.56% 72.67% predict the exact location of future growth, but on
its generalization capability and the ability to simulate
the future growth pattern. Hence, the simulated urban
masked out and the model made no prediction in growth maps were also evaluated on the basis of three
these areas. A mask corresponding to these areas spatial metrics namely, Mean Patch Fractal
was generated based on Survey of India Dimension, Landscape Shape Index and Percentage
topographical map and guide map of the study area. of like Adjacencies. These three metrices evaluated
Since the model only simulated transition from non the similarity between the actual and simulated
built-up to built-up with no reverse process taking growth patterns.
place, so the built-up cells in 1993 were also masked
out from the analysis. Kappa coefficient
viii) Simulation of urban growth using the optimal Kappa coefficient was computed from the confusion
ANN architecture : matrices generated by cross-tabulating the cell-by-
The entire dataset consisting of the five raster cell attributes between each of the twelve simulated
maps (14093 cells in each of the five raster maps) urban growth maps and the actual growth map for
was then passed through each of the selected twelve 1993–2001. The values of the Kappa coefficient
ANN architectures. The output map obtained from obtained for each of the twelve simulated urban
each ANN architecture showed the urban growth growth maps are given in Table 2. The value of
potential (UGP) of each cell in the study area. In each Kappa varies from 0–1, a Kappa value of 0.6 can be
of these twelve UGP maps, cells which had a UGP interpreted as an indication that the simulation is 60
value of 1 were converted to built-up cells while cells per cent better than one resulting from chance
having a UGP value of less than 1 did not transit to (Lillesand and Kiefer, 2000). From Table 3, it can
built-up and remained non built-up. be observed that in general the value of Kappa
372 J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (September 2009) 37:363–376

coefficient lies between 0.6 and 0.7, which can be size. One of the basic types of shape index based on
termed as very good as far as the prediction capability perimeter-area relationships is the fractal dimension
of the model on cell-to-cell basis is considered. The (FD), which can be computed as 2 times the
simulated urban growth map generated using the 5- logarithm of patch perimeter (m) divided by the
7-9-1 ANN architecture had the maximum value of logarithm of patch area (m 2). FD > 1 indicates
kappa coefficient, i.e., 0.72. departure from Euclidean geometry (i.e., an increase
in shape complexity). FD near to 1 reflects shapes
Table 3 Kappa coefficient values for each of the twelve with very simple perimeters such as squares. FD
simulated urban growth maps approaches 2, for shapes with highly convoluted,
plane-filling perimeters. The fractal dimension was
ANN architecture Kappa
calculated for all the built-up patches and then it was
5-13-1 0.658 averaged.
5-15-1 0.65 B. Landscape Shape Index (LSI): It is defined as
the total perimeter of built-up class divided by the
5-17-1 0.64
perimeter of the built-up class, if it was aggregated
5-5-9-1 0.62
into one square patch. The value of LSI = 1 when
5-5-11-1 0.66 the landscape consists of a single square. The LSI
5-6-5-1 0.57 increases as the class becomes more disaggregated.
5-6-8-1 0.65 C. Percentage of Like Adjacencies (PLADJ): It
5-6-10-1 0.61 is defined as the number of like cell adjacencies
5-7-6-1 0.64
involving the urban class, divided by the total number
of cell adjacencies involving the urban class,
5-7-7-1 0.62
multiplied by 100. PLADJ measures the degree of
5-7-8-1 0.66 aggregation of the built-up patch type. A landscape
5-7-9-1 0.72 containing greater aggregation of built-up patches
(e.g., larger patches with compact shapes) will
Spatial metrics contain a higher proportion of like adjacencies than
Three spatial metrics were calculated for each of the a landscape containing disaggregated patch types
twelve simulated urban growth maps and the actual (e.g., smaller patches). As such, this index provides
growth map for 1993–2001, using the spatial pattern an effective measure of class-specific contagion.
analysis software FRAGSTATS 3.3 (freely The value of PLADJ varies from 0 to 100. PLADJ
downloadable from the University of Massachusetts equals 0 when the corresponding class is maximally
website, http://www.umass.com). The three spatial disaggregated (i.e., every cell is a different patch) and
metrics calculated were : there are no like adjacencies. A PLADJ value of 100
indicates that the landscape consists of single class
a. Mean Patch Fractal Dimension and all adjacencies are between the same class.
b. Landscape Shape Index The above mentioned three spatial metrics were
c. Percentage of Like Adjacencies calculated for each of the twelve simulated maps and
A. Mean Patch Fractal Dimension (FRAC_MN): actual urban growth map. The percentage difference
A patch is defined as a group of pixels that are between the values of the three metrics for each
contiguous to each other and have the same attribute simulated map and the actual growth map was
value. Thus, different pockets of built-up area in a calculated using Equation 4 and the results were
map constitute urban patches of different shape and plotted as shown in Fig. 3.
J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (September 2009) 37:363–376
Fig. 3 Percentage difference between values of three spatial metrics calculated for the actual and simulated urban
growth maps for the year 2001.
Percent difference = [ (SM s - SM r) / SM r ]*100 (4)
SM s = Spatial metrics calculated from
simulated urban growth map
SM r = Spatial metrics calculated from actual
growth map
Results and discussion
From Fig. 3 it can be observed that the 5-7-7-1 ANN
architecture best simulated the urban growth
pattern compared to other network architectures, as
the per cent difference between the values of the three
spatial metrics is least for the 5-7-7-1 ANN
architecture compared to other ANN architectures.
While in terms of kappa coefficient (cell to cell
matching) the 5-7-9-1 ANN architecture gave the
highest value of 0.72. Since urban growth is a
stochastic process, so the strength of a predictive
urban growth model is in its ability to simulate the
future urban growth patterns, if not the exact location
of future growth. Hence, an exact simulation in terms
373
of cell-to-cell basis was not found to be realistic
because of the complexities and uncertainties of the
real world. It was felt that the model should be able
to simulate the overall future shape or growth pattern
of the city, instead of a pixel-to-pixel match between
the actual and simulated map. So the 5-7-7-1 network
architecture was selected for future prediction,
instead of the 5-7-9-1 network which produced the
highest kappa coefficient.
A visual comparison of the simulated built-up area
for 2001 (Fig. 4a) with the actual growth for year
2001 revealed, that the model was able to simulate
the actual urban growth pattern which had taken place
in a contiguous and concentric manner around the
existing built-up area. However, some growth had
taken place in an isolated and patchy form in the city
fringe areas, mainly in the south and north east
directions. The model is not able to predict these
types of growth quite accurately. Thus, the model was
able to simulate the growth pattern in areas having a
compact, dense and contiguous growth (city core)
more accurately as compared to the areas which had
374
(a)
Fig. 4 Simulated built-up areas using 5-7-7-1 ANN architecture for year (a) 2001 and (b) 2009.
a dispersed and isolated growth pattern (city fringe
areas).
The built-up area for year 2009 was also simulated
using the trained 5-7-7-1 ANN architecture (Fig. 4b).
It can be observed from Fig. 4(b), that the future
urban growth will take place in a compact form and
contiguous to the existing built-up areas. The areas
in the north, north-west, south and south-east might
experience more growth, as these areas are well
served by the road network and most of the roads
connecting the city to other parts of the state are
located also in these areas. Growth is also expected
to occur around patches of built-up areas located in
the vicinity of the main city. According to the model,
these fringe areas might grow in future and finally
merge with the city. The area in the east direction is
mainly occupied by defense establishments therefore,
not much of future growth is expected in this
direction.
J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (September 2009) 37:363–376
(b)
As observed from the existing actual growth
trends in the study area, (i.e., in year 2009), the city
is growing mainly in the north and south directions
with a number of residential areas and other facilities
coming up in these areas. Besides, growth is also
taking place around the areas which have developed
in a patchy manner around the city. These field
observations thus, also validate the predictions made
by the model for 2009.
Conclusions
A number of models have been built by various
authors, to explain urban spatial growth in terms of
various variables. The definition of rules for these
models is very crucial as the model performance
depends on them. Most of the models follow a
subjective procedure for definition of these rules,
which is a very tedious process. In the present study,
J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (September 2009) 37:363–376
the definition of rules is done directly by the ANN.
The user has to give the input variables or causative
factors (which are derived from remote sensing data),
once the ANN has learnt the growth pattern as a
function of these causative factors, the trained ANN
can then be used for future prediction. As a result,
the model calibration time is reduced and not much
computing power is required.
In the present work, instead of using the traditional
back propagation training algorithm (BP), a faster
version of BP the Levenberg- Marquardt was used,
which made it possible to evaluate a number of ANN
architecture in less time. The simulated urban growth
map had a kappa index greater than 0.6, which
demonstrated that the ANN based model was able to
predict the location of the built-up cells quite
accurately. For evaluating the simulated urban growth
pattern three spatial metrics were used. The values
of these three metrics calculated for the simulated and
the actual urban growth map matched very closely.
Thus, it can be inferred that the model was able to
simulate both the location and pattern of urban
growth. Finally, it can be concluded that the model
has successfully coupled GIS, remote sensing and
ANN, while reducing the subjectivity in urban growth
modelling at the same time.
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