تقييم النمو العمراني لمدينة الهفوف باستخدام تقنية الاستشعار عن بعد و نظام المعلومات الجغرافي

Abstract EN

This paper evaluates urban growth in the city of Al-Hufof, Saudi Arabia, for the years 1984 and 2010.

The study revealed that urban growth is uneven and unequally spread on all parts and directions of AlHufof.

In addition, rapid development and urbanization were found to be concentrated in some areas and decreased in others.

Analysis of satellite images showed that houses are scattered and irregularly distributed, mainly due to lack of governmental monitoring, which constitutes a burden on delivering services to housing.

Urban development is clearly expands to the north and north-west forming a north-west-south axis.

Moreover, roads and transport network appeared to be major factors contributing to urban development.

Also, this development can be probably attributed to the fact that these roads are the most economically active and more attractive to the economic investment.

Urban growth pattern analysis revealed that the prominent pattern of urban development in Al-Hufof is the linear style.

A large unused space of the city was observed either in 1984 or in 2010 where the urbanized area and urban activities are concentrated on only a 6% of the total area of the city.

The study recommended a series of actions including: training workshops on preparing an updated digital database for the city and analyzing satellite images and geographic information systems to be used in the process of planning and controlling of urbanization in the city.