Simulating spatial–temporal urban growth of a Moroccan metropolitan using CA–Markov model

The continuous urban expansion is one of the most important problems in urban development due to its negative societal and environmental impacts. This study encompasses the spatial–temporal of land use/cover change (LUCC) monitoring (1999–2018) and urban growth modelling (2010–2040) of El Jadida city, Morocco. For this purpose, Landsat-7 ETM and Landsat-8 OLI images combined with a Cellular Automata–Markov (CA–Markov) model were used to simulate and forecast LUCC. The characteristics of LUCC were discussed based on the land cover maps along with urban gradient analysis. After understanding the spatial–temporal patterns of LUCC, the CA–Markov and Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) model were employed using the historical land cover maps and other auxiliary data to simulate and forecast LUCC. The results showed that the urban area (built-up) increased with 19.8 km2. The rapid urbanization has replaced and transform bare soil (net loss 12.7 km2) followed by vegetation cover (net loss 7.1 km2) during 1999–2018. The result exhibited that the predominant built-up development was observed in south-west followed by south-east direction majorly within the municipal limits. The projected LULC exhibit that the built-up area will increase from 29.9 to 43.8 km2 with an average annual growth rate of 0.63, primarily in western and eastern parts during 2018–2040. The result for year 2040 with reasonably good accuracy will be useful to the planners, policy and decision makers. Therefore, the protection measures for environment should be set in advance according to the forecasting results of this study.