Urban sprawl and demographic dynamics in Suceava metropolitan area

Abstract

The quantification of the extension process of settlements boundaries is relatively new in the field of urban and territorial planning, taking scale once with the use of Geographic Informational System, in terms of remote sensing and photo interpretation of the satellite imagery from different periods of time. The contiguous build-up areas present high densities of population fact that is one of the premises of sustainable development. Using aerial and satellite imagery a highly-detailed map of the urban foot print of the studied area for the years 2004, 2010 and 2014which showed that the last 10 years the settlements expanded with almost 15%, mostly around Suceava and fragmenting the landscape. The demographic data showed that the population has grown on average, but some of the administrative units have lost population, the city of Suceava suffering the biggest population drop. In Romania urban sprawl is a phenomenon that also occurs for medium sized cities and the challenges for them are bigger due to the incapacity of the planning documents.