Article: Urbanisation in the George Town conurbation and its impact to the environment Journal: International Journal of Environmental Engineering (IJEE) 2018 Vol.9 No.3/4 pp.240 - 253 Abstract: Rapid urbanisation has brought positive social and economic impacts in term of improving public facilities and employment opportunities respectively. However, drastic increase of urban population has increased the demand for land to cater for the need of growing population. This paper aimed to monitor urban expansion in the George Town conurbation and evaluate its impact on the environment. The study used mixed methods approaches where at the first stage remote sensing (RS) technique using Erdas Imagine 2016 were utilised to monitor urban expansion from series of Landsat images and geographic information system (GIS) using ArcMap 10.3 proprietary software were used to map areas underwent land use transformation. Then, the households' survey using questionnaire was administered to investigate the perception of the community residing in the areas undergoing rapid urbanisation. The findings indicated that the respondents residing within urbanised areas where 73.44% of respondents in Bayan Lepas and 59.62% of respondents in Kerian had perceived negatives environmental impacts as compare to respondents in newly developed areas where 53.74% of respondents in Kuala Muda did not perceive negative environmental impacts. The findings provided valuable insights for planners in managing urban expansion thus reducing the impact on the environment. Inderscience Publishers - linking academia, business and industry through research

Title: Urbanisation in the George Town conurbation and its impact to the environment

Authors: Narimah Samat; Mohd Amirul Mahamud

Addresses: Geography Section, School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia ' Geography Section, School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia

Abstract: Rapid urbanisation has brought positive social and economic impacts in term of improving public facilities and employment opportunities respectively. However, drastic increase of urban population has increased the demand for land to cater for the need of growing population. This paper aimed to monitor urban expansion in the George Town conurbation and evaluate its impact on the environment. The study used mixed methods approaches where at the first stage remote sensing (RS) technique using Erdas Imagine 2016 were utilised to monitor urban expansion from series of Landsat images and geographic information system (GIS) using ArcMap 10.3 proprietary software were used to map areas underwent land use transformation. Then, the households' survey using questionnaire was administered to investigate the perception of the community residing in the areas undergoing rapid urbanisation. The findings indicated that the respondents residing within urbanised areas where 73.44% of respondents in Bayan Lepas and 59.62% of respondents in Kerian had perceived negatives environmental impacts as compare to respondents in newly developed areas where 53.74% of respondents in Kuala Muda did not perceive negative environmental impacts. The findings provided valuable insights for planners in managing urban expansion thus reducing the impact on the environment.

Keywords: community; environment; geographic information system; GIS; land use changes; remote sensing; urbanisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEE.2018.097513

International Journal of Environmental Engineering, 2018 Vol.9 No.3/4, pp.240 - 253

Received: 31 Jan 2018
Accepted: 15 Apr 2018
Published online: 25 Jan 2019 *

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Title: Urbanisation in the George Town conurbation and its impact to the environment

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