Monitoring Urban Sprawl and the National Ecological Reserve in Sintra-Cascais, Portugal: Multiple OLS Linear Regression Model Evaluation
Publication: Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 137, Issue 3
Abstract
A methodology is proposed to assess the effectiveness of the National Ecological Reserve (REN) law, which aims to protect ecologically valuable and/or vulnerable areas, in the municipalities of Sintra and Cascais, Portugal. Landsat satellite data classification and land change analysis show that urban area almost doubled between 1989 and 2001, when REN was already in force covering 36.5% of the study area. The approach involved multiple ordinary least squares (OLS) linear regression models to evaluate the evolution of five landscape metrics that translate the impact of urban sprawl in REN main functions: soil, water, and nature protection, and protection of people and belongings settled in hazard-vulnerable areas. Results show that REN had an impact on landscape change attributable to urbanization. However, these changes were unfavorable to its core ecological functions. Multiple linear OLS regression modeling proved to be an effective and simple method to compare and understand the evolution of landscape structure between areas protected by REN and their surroundings.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the Lisbon Metropolitan Area for kindly making the REN data set available for this research. The authors would also like to express their gratitude to the anonymous reviewers that helped improving the quality of this work.
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Published In
Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 137 • Issue 3 • September 2011
Pages: 346 - 353
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 17, 2010
Accepted: Sep 24, 2010
Published online: Dec 3, 2010
Published in print: Sep 1, 2011
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