Urban Landscape Dynamic Analysis on Mandalay City, Myanmar

Cities across Asia are developing and expanding at an unprecedented rate. As expansion is typically left up to market forces and the private sector, local and national level planning is often overlooked as developers search for development sites and land, which can ultimately stimulate the economy of the city and entire region. As Mandalay City has a history with various disasters, this Land Cover / Land Use (LCLU) will provide both opportunities and challenges for resilience urban action plan and planners. In this study, urban land cover pattern derived from Landsat TM/ETM satellite data for two decades (1998–2014) using Google Earth Engine. These maps show that built-up increased by 5288.40 ha in first time period (1998–2002) and 2695.77 ha during next period (2002–2014) of study. Three major land covers classes mapped are; (i) built-up, (ii) water and (iii) other or non-built-up. The two-time maps were compared to qualitatively and quantitatively capture the dynamics of urban expansion in the city. Along with urbanized area and urban footprint maps, the new development areas during the study time periods were also identified. The assessment on new development areas consisted of three major categories of developments, (i) infill, (ii) extension and (iii) leapfrog. It was found that during urban growth in 1989 - 2002 period, massive reduction of drainage capacity due to extension and in fill. Large portion of flood built-up area consists of informal settlement along the river (ribbon) and on the sand dunes