Urban Sprawl Monitoring

Urban sprawl is a common phenomenon in developed and developing countries. Population growth and immigration to cities are the most important reason to such urban expansions. Out layer growths which in the most cases results sprawl has so many attractions such as low rate of crime, lower costs of living and clean air. These are probably the reasons to rapid increase of this phenomenon. Urban sprawl is a kind of growth in cities which have derived so many negative impacts such as agriculture and natural land loss, environmental pollution, high rate of travel time and costs, high rate of energy consuming, etc. Thus, analyzing and monitoring urban area is a key task for urban planning to inform about urban growth. Numerous researches have attempted to characterize and explain urban sprawl. In this study, the authors implemented Shannon entropy for assessments of urban sprawl. The case study was performed in Tehran Metropolis which has experienced fast urbanization and population growth in the recent decades.