Land Use Change in Phoenix, Arizona 1990-2014

Phoenix, the capital of Arizona is a city of about 1.44 million people. It has experienced significant land use change from 1990 to the present day. Today, Phoenix is surrounded by the metro areas of Glendale, Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and Peoria. To answer the question of “How has urban development changed land areas around the city of Phoenix, Arizona from the early 1990’s to the present day?” A variety of methods will be used. USGS’ Global Visualization Viewer (GLOVIS) will be used to download imagery from Landsat 7 and 8 in order to compare land use change from 1990 to the present day. Once the satellite scenes are downloaded, ERDAS IMAGINE software will be used to perform classifications on each image to determine if a land area has developed into urban sprawl, or if an area has stayed the same. In addition, change detection analysis will be used in the software to highlight land use change over time. External research papers will be examined to determine the effect of land use change over the city of Phoenix, as well as surrounding areas