تقويم التوسع العمراني النشط لمدينة خميس مشيط : باستخدام الصور الفضائية عالية الدقة المكانية 1965-2009 م

الملخص EN

Remote sensing studies are considered to be among the most important that characterize contemporary geographic sciences.

Remote sensing is becoming the focus of Earth scientists, especially geographers who exploit the multiple potentialities of spatial imagery in their different fields of study via synoptic, diachronic and detailed surface vision of Earth's space.

The use of historic images such those of the US spy satellite CORONA with their very high spatial resolution allows a diachronic, indepth and detailed study of all the changes and modifications that have affected the elements of the Earth's surface from 1965 to date.

Prior to the availability of images from the American spy satellite CORONA, the only data available with good spatial resolution in the year 1965 were aerial photographs that covered only small portions of the Earth's surface and whose use was difficult because requiring a series of processing techniques including the use of stereoscopes and mosaics.

Landsat satellite images acquired in the early 1970s did not allow for a detailed analysis because of their low spatial resolution.

We can therefore measure the scope and importance of the decision of the US authorities in 1995 to declassify CORONA images, exploited by their intelligence services for military purposes since 1960, to make their use public.

For large portions of the earth's surface, this means the possibility of acquiring very high-resolution images in the 1960s, thus promoting detailed studies of the physical, human and economic aspects of various geographical areas.

The purpose of this research is to provide a concrete example of how to use Corona images for the purpose of monitoring and analyzing the urban development of one of the dynamic cities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the city of Khamis Mushayt located in the province of Asir.

Beyond this objective we want to present a research methodology that highlights the interest of CORONA satellite images for the study of urban expansion and growth.

This will help to better understand and quantify this exponential urban growth, especially for multifunctional cities like Khamis Mushayt in southwestern Saudi Arabia.

The methodology used in the research is based on the GIS method : after processing the various images by ArcGIS 10.6 and ERDAS IMAGINE.

The spatial data was analyzed and presented in the form of maps and tables to compare the urban growth of the different years.

The results highlight the size of Khamis Mushayt, which did not exceed the size of a large village become a city with large architectural dimensions and an important administrative center.

The percentage of urban areas for the base year 1965 reached 1028% in 1980 and 4700% in 1995 to reach 5983% for the year 2009.

The main expansion was on two main axes, west towards the administrative capital and south-east towards the military cities and at the expense of mountain areas and valleys.

The research interested the internal factors of the rapid urban development of Khamis Mushait.