Analysis of Urban Distribution Pattern with Satellite Imagery

Nowadays, urbanized area expands its boundary, and distribution of urbanized area is gradually transformed into more complicated pattern. In Korea, SMA(Seoul Metropolitan Area) has outstanding urbanized area since 1950s. But it is ambiguous whether urban distribution is clustered or dispersed. This study aims to show the way in which expansion of urbanized area impacts on spatial distribution pattern of urbanized area. We use quadrat analysis, nearest-neighbor analysis and fractal analysis to know distribution pattern of urbanized area in time-series urban growth. The quadrat analysis indicates that distribution pattern of urbanized area is clustered but the cohesion is gradually weakened. And the nearest-neighbor analysis shows that point patterns are changed that urbanized area distribution pattern is progressively changed from clustered pattern into dispersed pattern. The fractal dimension analysis shows that 1972's distribution dimension is 1.428 and 2000's dimension is 1.777. Therefore, as time goes by, the complexity of urbanized area is more increased through the years. As a result, we can show that the cohesion of the urbanized area is weakened and complicated.