Techniques for mapping suburban sprawl

The pervasive problems generated by urban sprawl have prompted us to examine methods for delineating the extent of suburban land cover in Georgia. This paper assesses the advantages and disadvantages of two different methods of mapping suburban neighborhoods: traditional unsupervised classification of Landsat 5 TM data and a newly devised procedure for editing and buffering road coverages. We conclude that, while the amount of time required to edit and buffer road coverages is significantly higher than that for traditional remote sensing techniques, the improved thematic accuracy, spatial contiguity, and potential future uses of the resulting dataset justifies its use in a state-wide mapping program.