Investigating the Impact of Urbanization on Environmental Sustainability Using a Geospatial Decision-Making Model

Abstract

One of the most important agents of environmental change in the 21st century is urbanization, which frequently results in rapid land development and deterioration of the environment. This paper explores how urbanization affects the sustainability of the environment through a Geospatial Decision-Making Model (GDMM) with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing. The main aim is to examine the spatial patterns of urban growth and correlation with the main environmental pointers, such as vegetation cover (NDVI), Land Surface Temperature (LST), water body area, air quality index (AQI) and a general Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI). The approach involves the use of multi-source data, such as Landsat 8, Sentinel-2 imagery, MODIS climate products, and governmental environmental databases. Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) change detection, weighted overlay analysis, and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) were used as spatial analysis techniques to examine the dynamics of environmental sustainability in urban and peri-urban areas. These findings show that urban expansion and environmental sustainability have a strong negative relationship (