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European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 24, Number 2 (2011)
252
Analyzing the State and Pattern of Urban Growth and City
Planning in Amman Using Satellite Images and GIS
Zeyad Makhamreha
A Department of Geography, University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan
E-mail: z.makhamreh@ju.edu.jo
Tel: +962-775-620714; Fax: +962-6-5330689
Nazeeh Almanasyeha
A Department of Geography, University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan
Abstract
Jordan experienced a high rate of urbanization during the last five decades leading to
concentration of population in the main cities. This has created high demand for the
opening up of huge areas to meet housing, commercial, industrial and other service
planning requirements. The objective of this study is to investigate the current pattern of
land use and urban servicing and to monitor the trends of urban growth in Amman between
1972 and 2009 using satellite images and GIS. The results showed that the urban core of
Amman changed continuously over time with high rates of population growth.
Considerable urban expansion was identified with the total settlement areas increasing from
36 km
2
to 250 km
2
at the expense of agricultural land over the time period under study. The
Amman city-center has a high population density, and the suburban towns absorbed the
potential development, and exhibited an expansionary pattern of urban development. It
concentrated along major transportation routes, resulting in different pattern of urban
development between the east and west parts of the city. Combination of remote sensing
and GIS are useful for understanding the complexities of relationships between
urbanization, urban services and agricultural landscape changes.
Keywords: Urbanization, Urban Planning, Amman, Remote Sensing, GIS
1. Introduction
Urbanization is a complex process of change of rural lifestyles into urban ones. It can be defined as the
changes that occur in the territorial and socioeconomic progress of an area, including the general
transformation of land use categories from being non-developed to developed (Weber 2001). This
process is intimately related to the introduction of new modes of technology and transportation, in
particular those that allow mobility of the masses (Champion 2001; Pacione 2001; Antrop 2000).
Accessibility became the most important factor in landscape change and even in the remote
countryside, urbanization processes can be noticed when a region is supported with a good
transportation infrastructure.
Urbanization is a major trend in recent years all around the world. Currently, almost half of the
world’s population live in urban areas and the prospect is that 60% of the world’s population will be
urban by 2030 and the number of mega cities will reach 100 by 2025 (Avelar, Zah, and Tavares-Corrêa
2009). The population of the Arab world is on the verge of shifting from being predominantly rural to
urban. As of 2010, more than half of the Arab world’s human population has resided in urban areas,
European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 24, Number 2 (2011)
253
and by 2050, urban inhabitants will account for approximately 75% of the Arab world’s population
(Mirkin 2010).
Several decades of population explosion and accelerated urban growth have had profound
environmental and socioeconomic impacts felt in both developing and developed countries alike (Wu
et al. 2011; Chen et al. 2011). Understanding the environmental and social impacts brought on by
urbanization is critical to those who study urban dynamics and those who must manage resources and
provide services in these rapidly changing environments (Su et al. 2011; Yeh and Huang 2009).
Urbanization is a complex process of converting rural land uses to urban land uses and has
caused various impacts on ecosystem structure, function, and dynamics (Antrop and Van Eetvelde
2000; Pickett et al. 2001; Luck and Wu 2002). One of the major problems for most urbanized countries
and regions is the conversion of agricultural land into developed land uses, which is a direct result of
urbanization (Batisani and Yarnal 2009; OECD 2001). High population density in urban areas has
resulted in a large-scale modification of the landscape and environment. As a city grows, the increasing
concentration of population and economic activities demands more land to be developed for public
infrastructure (e.g. roads, water facilities, and utilities), housing, and industrial and commercial uses.
Planning and managing urban spaces depends on the knowledge of the underlying driving
forces, combined with the chronology and impacts of urbanization (Klosterman 1999). City planners,
economists and resource managers therefore need advanced methods and a comprehensive knowledge
of the cities under their jurisdiction to make the informed decisions necessary to guide sustainable
development in rapidly changing urban environments (Pham et al. 2011). However, urban landscapes
are dynamic and continuously changing as a city grows, satellite images can also be used to detect the
spatial characteristics of landscape pattern through time (Herold et al. 2003; Dietzel et al. 2005).
Remote sensing provides spatially consistent coverage of large areas with both high spatial
detail and temporal frequency, which is useful for examining historical time series (Jensen and Cowen
1999). Moreover, remote sensing data is effective to monitor the land use change, especially where
information on land use is inconsistent and insufficient. Therefore, with increased availability and
improved multi-spatial and multi-temporal resolution, remote sensing can be applied to monitor and
analyze urban expansion and land use changes in a timely and cost-effective manner.
The combination of remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) can provide
spatially consistent and detailed information about urban service structure, permitting more accurate
representation and understanding of urban growth processes (Deng et al. 2009). They have been
recognized as powerful and effective tools for detecting the spatiotemporal dynamics of landscapes
changes at various scales (Geri, Amici, and Rocchini 2010; Serra, Pons, and Saurì 2008). Landscape
ecology offers theories and methods that can contribute to the formulation of sustainability strategies
through a better understanding of landscape transformation processes (Ribeiro and Lovett 2009).
The exponential increase in population has fueled a significant demographic shift in Jordan so
more than 80% of the Jordanian population is living in urban areas (DOS 2010). While this population
growth is significant in its magnitude, the social and ecological footprint of natural resource
consumption and use required to sustain urban populations is even greater. The land use and cover
changes accompanying urbanization impacts natural ecosystems at multiple spatial scales.
The focus grows, out of the concern that unlike other variations in agricultural land availability,
it is unlikely that agricultural land converted to developed uses will ever become available again for
agricultural production (Thompson and Prokopy 2009). Therefore, the high visibility of agricultural
land conversion to developed uses has motivated many policy makers, communities, and farmers to
call for action to address this alarming issue. However, few studies has been concerned with
development of urban growth and development of Amman city (Oroud and Rousan 2004; Al-
Rawashdeh and Saleh 2006).
The main objective of this study is to investigate the dynamics of urban landscapes in response
to rapid urbanization and service allocation, for Amman city, one of the most populated and fastest
growing cities in Jordan and in the Middle East. More specifically, our objectives are to: (1)
European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 24, Number 2 (2011)
254
characterize intra-level urban landscape transformations in Amman between 1972 and 2009; and (2)
quantify relationships between landscape transformations, urbanization patterns and services.
2. Study Area and Input Data
2.1. Study Area - Amman
Jordan is a small country, whose population is concentrated predominantly along the Mediterranean
climate, in close proximity to its major cities Amman, Zarqa, Madaba, Salt and Irbid. The population
of these cities and their immediate hinterland amounts to some 75% of the Jordan residents as indicated
in figure (1). The study focuses on Amman city and its surrounding suburbs with an area of around 900
km
2
, which is part of greater Amman-area. Amman represents the main economic centre of the
country, with over 80% of all industrial and service activities located in the capital city together with
the industrial suburbs and peri-urban zone toward Zarqa.
2.2. Data Sources
Sets of multi-spectral and multi-temporal satellite data for Amman were obtained for the years 1972–
2009 from the USGS, USA. Cloud cover was less than 10% in all images, and the images were
rectified geometrically to a common Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system. The
demographic analysis of the population characteristics in Amman was based on the population census
and Household survey in Amman carried out by department of statistics at different survey periods.
3. Methodology
The assessment of the evolution trends of the Amman has been carried out. The methodological
approach includes two main steps: first is to define the current land use pattern, locate the spatial
distribution of urban services, and second is to investigate the trend of urban growth during the period
from 1972 to 2009.
Figure 1: Location of Greater Amman Municipilities.
European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 24, Number 2 (2011)
255
3.1. Demographic Analysis and Urban Services
This step includes performing the demographic analysis of the population characteristics in Amman
based on the published population census and household survey. The population census was used in
order to calculate the growth rate, density distribution and household characteristics of the Amman
population. The GIS facilities was used to perform the spatial analysis of urban services in Amman
such as roads, different types of education and health centers, etc. Finally, the urban growth pattern and
service distribution were used to analyze urban growth within the context of urban planning.
3.2. Land Cover Classification
This study used mid-resolution Landsat images for land cover classification and urban growth
monitoring. The surface land cover maps of the city were generated from satellite images using the
supervised maximum-likelihood classification method (Pham and Yamaguchi 2007). The results of this
classification method were validated against the reference data sources such as published land use
maps. The accuracy of the classification is around 84% in 1972 and 89% in 2009. The online
interpretation was used for delination of urban classes in the study raea in the monitoring peroid. The
land cover categories are then integrated in a GIS environment to calculate the land use types and their
rate of change.
4. Result and Discussion
4.1. Trends of Demographic Growth
The Urbanization in Jordan is the result of a rapid population growth caused by high natural growth
and a flow of refugees. This essentially unplanned and therefore uncontrolled process results in the
destruction of natural landscape and ecological footprint. Historically, urban immigration in Amman
has increased at rates that have exceeded those of infrastructure development in the destination cities,
resulting in concentration of population and increasing of population density. Continuous migration
flows have largely contributed to an increase of the population density and built-up areas, one of the
main effects of such a situation is the transformation of settlement structures and urban services.
The population growth of Amman since the second half of the 20th century has been
phenomenal, in terms of its population, density, and socio-economic characteristics. This has
transformed Amman from small town in the early 1920s of little more than 3000 people to a major city
with a population of 2.4 million people as shown in figure 2 (DOS 2010).
Figure 2: Development of Amman population in the period from 1950s to 2010.
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
2010 2004 1994 1979 1961 1952
Year
Population size (Million)
European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 24, Number 2 (2011)
256
Through the period from 1920s to the first Arab-Israeli war Amman experienced a gradual
spatial expansion. Its population was estimated at 11 thousand in early 1930s and 45 thousand in the
early 1940s. Population size was dramatically increased and reaches around 350 thousand in 1952
shortly after the first Arab-Israeli conflict in 1948. By 1979 the population of Amman city had reached
about 778 thousand inhabitants, representing 52.6% that of Amman Governorate and virtually 30% of
the country. In 1994 the population had reached 1.3 million inhabitants representing an increase of
54.6%. The last census in 2004 after the creation of the geographically wider Greater Amman
Municipality, the population of Amman Governorate had increased to some 1.73 million inhabitants.
Thus, at this stage, the population of Amman amounted to approximately 32.7% of the Kingdom’s total
of 5.3 in 2004. But with the war in Iraq, the population is currently continuing to grow at a phenomenal
rate and in 2010 the department of statistics gave the population of Amman as 2.4 million out of 6.1
million for Jordan as a whole, which equals almost 40% of the national population. Figure (3)
represents the distribution of Amman population in terms of population percentage on a sub-districts
basis. The analysis show that more than 53% of the population concentrated in the city center of
Amman e.g. Qasaba Amman and Marka sub districts, while 47% of the population distributed on the
other parts of Greater Amman Municipilities.
Figure 3: Distribution of population percentage within the Amman sub-districts in 2006
28.5
24.9
14.4 13.2
8.9
2.9 1.8
0.35
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Qasaba
Marka
University
Quaismeh
Wadi Essier
Sahab
Jizeh
Um Al-
Rasas
Amman sub-districts
Population percentage (%)
Another important population indicator is the population density, which characterized the
population growth both in Jordan and Amman governorates because its affect on the development
process and its geographical distribution. Figure (4) represents the Amman population properties in
terms of population density on a sub-districts basis. Currently, the population density in Jordan is about
62 person/km
2
while in Amman is 286.7 person/km
2
. However, analysis of the population
characteristics on a sub-districts level give detailed overview of the demographic differences within the
Amman governorate itself.
It is obvious that, the highest population density are occupied by Qasaba Amman, with high
difference from the other parts, and then followed by Al-Quaismeh, University and Marka sub-districts
with about 81% of the total population of Amman. They also have the highest population density in
Amman and Jordan. In contrary, the new expansion area’s in Amman governorates toward the eastern
and southern parts (Sahab, Jizeh, and Naóor) have the lowest population percentage and density among
European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 24, Number 2 (2011)
257
the Amman governorates with about 5.8% of population, while the other expansion area (Um Al-
Rasas, Mowaqqar, Rujam Alshami, Um El-Basatien and Hesban) have less than of 1% of population
percentage in Amman governorate.
Figure 4: Distribution of population density within the Amman sub-districts in 2006.
0
3000
6000
9000
12000
Amman sub-district
Population density (Persona/Km2)
Qasaba Amman University
Al-Quaismeh Marka
Wadi Essier Naóor
Um El-Basatien Amman Governorate
Hesban Sahab
Rujam Alshami Muwaqqar
Jizeh Um Al-Rasas
The socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the households of Amman show that,
the main difference between the household's characteristics was in their respective average income
levels, and household size (Potter et al. 2009). The general levels of prosperity and incomes are higher
in the capital. According to the Household Expenditure and Income Survey (DOS 2003). The average
annual income of Amman's households was 6533 JD, while the national figure was 5590 JD. Also,
there are distinct differences between two levels in terms of average house size, this is 345 m
2
for the
high income households and considerably lowers at 82 m
2
for the low-income households (DOS 2008).
Thus, while 76% of low-income households live in houses comprising 100 m
2
or less, some 20% of
high-income households live in houses with 401 m
2
or more of living space. These differences were
also reflected on the pattern and structure of urban facilities in the city.
4.2. Current Land Covers and Urban Services
The urban land use plan for Amman was designed to transform the city from being mono-centric to a
multi-centric metropolis in order to decentralize the population and economic activities. As reported by
Amman city council, the new satellite towns have been aggregated to the Amman Municipal district
since 2008 so that the suburbs will absorb the development potential of the new population of Amman.
As can be seen, the satellite towns of Amman have had a significant impact on the pattern of
development of urban growth and urbanization in the city. Figure 5 shows the current land cover
classification of Amman in 2009.
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258
Figure 5: Land cover classification of Amman in 2009.
The land cover classifications allow for the identification of six major lands cover categories in
the study area. The major categories are urban area (settlements, road, quarries etc.), agriculture land
(field crops, tree crops and vegetables), bare soil, rangeland, forestland mainly scattered forest, and
rocks. Figure 6 show the relative importance and percentages of major land use types in the study area.
The most dominant land use types are agricultural land, urban area and bare soil with about 85% of the
total area.
On the other hand, the distribution of urban services in Amman as shown in figure 7, show that
the route accessibility and land tenure characteristics are the most important factors influencing rate
and direction of urban development, while the distribution of other facilities e.g. education and health
services are playing a minor role. This observation suggests that, the mass transport lines that were
constructed to link the satellite suburbs to the urban core may have been a key factor contributing to
the unplanned expansion of the urban areas in the region.
European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 24, Number 2 (2011)
259
Figure 6: Relative importance and percentages of major land use types in the study area.
0
10
20
30
40
Agricultural
land
Urban area
Bare soil
Rangeland
Rock
Forest
Land use types
Occupation percentage (%)
Currently, the spatial characteristics of the urban areas of Amman had become increasingly
complex. The peak in the population number indicated an increase in the fragmentation of the urban
areas, and decreases the existence of open spaces inside the urbanized areas.
In examining the location of educational and health services in the urban area of Amman, it was
observed that the services seemed to be randomly distributed in a way that did not correspond with the
actual population distribution. This result confirms the findings of Al-Hunatie (1996), who studied the
distribution of services in south of Amman. He found that the pattern of service distribution and
provision did not ensure the principles of efficiency or equality in terms of access to services.
In addition, there are several other factors that play a key role in the geographical location
planning of basic services in Jordan in general and Amman in particular. This includes the land tenure
type, the borders of sub-districts, the road and transportation network and the topography of lands. The
combination of these factors means that, as Al-Tyyif (1985) suggests, increasing the number of
services will not necessarily improve access for a large proportion of the population.
Due to the marked difference in socio-economic conditions, the form of urbanization in west
Amman is considerably different from that observed in east Amman. The urban growth under the
Amman Land Use Master Plan has been influenced by economic development of the country and the
city. In the east of Amman, the urban area was small and condensed, which is corroborated by the
small size and high density, while in the west Amman, the pattern of urban area is fragmented and
population density is lower than the other parts.
The urbanization of Amman has also produced several patterns. The new urban areas were
quickly assimilated into the old urban centre by the rapid and unexpected economic growth that
followed the privatization reforms, while the areas of east Amman remained relatively less developed.
In the newly urbanized areas, the new transportation routes and apartment buildings were planned very
close to existing urban areas and are an average of higher development level.
European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 24, Number 2 (2011)
260
Figure 7: Distribution of the urban services in Amman in 2009.
4.3. Pattern of Urbanization
The pattern of urban expansion in Amman during the time period from 1972 to 2009 was investigated
and analyzed using Landsat images and GIS.
Amman population size was increased approximately 480 times in less than a century. The
huge increase in population and unplanned housing is increasing on the cost of agricultural land, which
created many planning and environmental problems. The analysis shows an increase in the urban area
from 36 km
2
to 250 km
2
in the time period from 1972 to 2009, which represents an increase of about
European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 24, Number 2 (2011)
261
595 times in the urban area. Figure (8) shows the changes in urban area in Amman city, which show a
trend of increase in the urban area on the cost of the Agricultural lands.
Figure 8: Changes in urban area in Amman city since 1972 (Computed from personal analysis and other
published data (Oroud and Rousan 2004; Al-Rawashdeh and Saleh 2006).
0
100
200
300
2009 2002 1996 1983 1972
Year
Area (square kilometer)
The early urban expansion was concentrated around the water resources and main transport
routes in the city center. Then it started to take the direction of other parts of the city, towards East,
North and then in the South. The routes which are connecting the major cities were of the major roads
in Jordan. The first axis is oriented toward the northeast direction and follows the road to Zarqa, and it
was growing together to form one bulk city. The other axis is oriented toward the northwest direction
and follows the road to Jarash and Ajloun cities. Recently, a new axis of urban expansion is appeared
towards the south west direction and connects Amman with Madaba and the south, which was growing
over the agricultural lands to create the most prominent developed part of Amman and Jordan.
The area of the inner city transportation infrastructure increased enormously implying that new
road construction was a powerful catalyst for the growth of urbanization to outside of city directions.
The rate of urban growth varies from one period to another. The rate of urban growth of Amman over
the time period being monitored was 5.8 km
2
per year, which is the highest rate among the other cities
in the Middle East. The first trend of urbanization since 1950s was mainly oriented toward the
unoccupied area, while this urbanization expanded in the last decades toward the agricultural lands. In
the eighties amd nineties, the urban expansion is about 45 km
2
, which represents a growth of 43%
mainly due to the Gulf war in 1991. The new developed area of west Amman was also observed to
expand rapidly since the mid eighties.
In order to promote the decentralization of the city centre, numerous new suburbs were
constructed since the 2000s mainly in the western part of the city. Taken together, agricultural land
were converted to urban use and the urban areas continued to expand along highways to the south and
south-west of the city. The urbanization in west Amman after the 2000s was characterized by the
outlying pattern with pronounced development on both sides of main streets toward the south direction.
Most of this new development activity arose through the conversion of vacant land along the periphery
of the city near the major transportation routes and far away from the sub-urban centres. The new
developed urban areas subsequently expanded along the major services and transportation routes and a
multi centered city was created in Amman.
The study showed that a great urban expansion in Amman area of 214 km
2
had occurred during
the past century which led to the destruction of about 98 km
2
of agricultural lands. This is equivalent to
the increase in the Built-up areas within and around the cities of Amman with about 6 times in the
monitoring time. These results are in accordance with the growth trend that observed by previous
European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 24, Number 2 (2011)
262
studies conducted on Amman city (Oroud and Rousan 2004; Al-Rawashdeh and Saleh 2006). The
expansion was mainly due to the immigration of population from neighboring countries. Demographic,
political, economic, and legislative factors interacted to produce this accelerated urban growth. During
this period, the population of Jordan increased more than 11 times. Beside that, the low economic
return of dry agricultural lands, along with a substantial jump in land prices in and around urban
centers, which led to the massive transformation of agricultural lands into urban conglomerates. The
absence of laws regulating land use, along with a lack of vision and creativity among decision makers,
has been a major factor in the growth of urban areas at the expense of the productive agricultural lands.
A reduction in agricultural lands has vastly consequences on water resources, biological
diversity and food production. The fast growing of population and urban areas created new problems to
internal structure of the Amman city. It is suffering from deterioration of landscape biodiversity, traffic
jams, air pollution, and severe water shortages. However, urbanization is not always a bad thing, rather
it is a very useful way for societies to get together and share resources, therefore, it would be better if it
were planned growth in conjunction with sustaining environmental biodiversity, which is not the case
of Amman city.
5. Conclusion
Urbanization is primarily a complex of functional changes, it occurs near cities as well as in the rural
countryside. It is regarded as a diffusion wave of changing life-style mainly controlled by the changing
accessibility of places offering new opportunities. The integration of remote sensing and GIS provides
a useful method for analyzing urban growth patterns, and for examining the changes in the urban land
use over time. The results of this study show the relationship between certain changes of spatial land
use pattern and a particular type of city planning policies and services distribution.
The great urban expansion in Amman is represented by a 6 times increase in the build-up areas
during the time period being monitored. During this period, the population of Jordan increased more
than 11 times. This resulted in the establishment of satellite towns or suburbs around the existing city
centre of Amman, which was demonstrated by the rapid development of residential zones in the new
suburb of Amman and creation of multi-center cities. The results presented in this study were useful in
getting comprehensive information required for making informed land use planning decisions, and
contribute to an increased understanding of the urban dynamics and development of future sustainable
land use plans, especially in other cities of Jordan. It shows the need for modern master land use plans
and promulgating appropriate land legislation policies is thus considered to be vital for the future
development of Amman.
As land resources for new development in Jordan rapidly diminish, the development pressure
on the Jordanian land resources may intensify. Therefore, if the current trend of urban growth
continues into the future, the Amman city will face many environmental and urban planning problems.
Besides that, the agricultural activities will inevitably be forced towards the eastern and southern parts,
semiarid fringe of the desert. This may result in the intensification of the environmental and social
impacts in the country, due to further urbanization process. Therefore, alternative scenarios for
sustainable development of Amman and Jordan are required. The most promising alternative scenario
propose either full or partial cessation of the urbanization process in the fertile, heavy populated areas,
and, introduce urbanization to desert regions, instead of introducing agriculture to deserts.
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