International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment (2017) 6, 160–169

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Gulf Organisation for Research and Development

International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment

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Original Article/Research

Analysis of urban growth and sprawl from remote sensing data: Case
of Fez, Morocco
Abdelkader El Garouani a,⇑, David J. Mulla b, Said El Garouani c, Joseph Knight d
a
Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Route d’Imouzzer, BP. 2202, Fez 30060, Morocco
b
Department of Soil, Water, and Climate, University of Minnesota, 1991 Upper Buford Circle, 439 Borlaug Hall, Minneapolis, MN, USA
c
Informatic Department, Faculty of Sciences, Abdelmalek Essaadi University, B.P. 2121, Tetouan 93002, Morocco
d
Remote Sensing and Geospatial Analysis Laboratory, University of Minnesota, 1991 Upper Buford Circle, 439 Borlaug Hall, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Received 21 April 2016; accepted 10 February 2017

Abstract

Fez is the most ancient of the imperial cities of Morocco. In Fez the rate of population growth has been spectacular in recent times
(484,300 inhabitants in 1982 and 1,129,768 in 2014). The accelerated rate of population growth has generated a large urban sprawl in all
its forms and serious environmental problems. In this research, we have analyzed the relationship between urbanization and land use
changes and their impact on cityscape in Fez and the importance of the increase in impervious surface areas. Satellite imageries and cen-
sus data have been used to identify different patterns of land use change and growth of the city for the period 1984–2013. Classification
and analysis of the satellite imageries were performed using Erdas imagine and ArcGIS Software. Urban sprawl in Fez was assessed over
29 years (1984–2013). The overall accuracy of land cover change maps, generated from post-classification change detection methods and
evaluated using several approaches, ranged from 78% to 87%. The maps showed that between 1984 and 2013 the amount of urban or
developed land increased by about 121%, while rural cover by agriculture and forest decreased respectively by 11% and 3%.
Ó 2017 The Gulf Organisation for Research and Development. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Urban expansion; GIS; Remote sensing; Fez; Morocco

1. Introduction urban population (Bhatta, 2010; Sharma, 1985). During

Urbanization that is considered as a positive process
linked to modernization, industrialization and global inte-
gration has economically benefitted only a minority of the
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: el_garouani@yahoo.fr (A. El Garouani), mulla003@
umn.edu (D.J. Mulla), saidelgarouani@yahoo.fr (S. El Garouani),
jknight@umn.edu (J. Knight).
Peer review under responsibility of The Gulf Organisation for Research
and Development.
the last century, Moroccan society was increasingly urban
(Fig. 1). The accelerated rate of urbanization in all forms
and the population growth in Morocco has been generating
serious environmental problems and concern for both the
government and interested stakeholders (Lehzam, 2012).
The amount of impervious surface in a landscape is an
important indicator of environmental quality. Impervious
surfaces are defined as any surface which water cannot
infiltrate and are primarily associated with transportation
and building rooftops (Bauer et al., 2007). Imperviousness
increases water runoff, and hence, is a primary determinant

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijsbe.2017.02.003
2212-6090/Ó 2017 The Gulf Organisation for Research and Development. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 A. El Garouani et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 6 (2017) 160–169
Fig. 1. Population growth in urban and rural areas in Morocco (HCP, 2015).
of runoff volumes in urbanized areas. The impervious sur-
face area provides a measure of land use that is closely cor-
related with these impacts (Arnold and Gibbons, 1996). It
therefore follows that impervious cover information is fun-
damental to assess flooding risks and flood management in
the city.
Economic development demands sustainable land man-
agement. Spatial information on land use/land cover types
and their change detection in time series are important
means for city planning and new development activities
(Ewing et al., 2002). The present research is undertaken
in that spirit. It will analyze the relationship between urban
growth and land use changes and their impact on the Fez
cityscape. This information is an essential tool in
decision-making and management policy of the city by
the local authority and for ensuring sustainable urban
growth and development in the study area. The period of
focus is from 1984 to 2013. Topographical maps, high-
resolution satellite imageries and other necessary data have
been used to detect land use/land cover changes in the
study area.
Numerous researchers, including Arvind et al. (2006),
Lunetta and Balogh (1999), Yuan et al. (2005), Zubair
(2006) and others have demonstrated the value of multi-
temporal satellite imagery for classification of land cover.
The strong development of remote sensing and GIS tech-
nology has helped us to study the urban space
development.
2. Study area
Fez is located on the northern part of Morocco (Fig. 2).
The urban community of Fez accounted for 1,129,768
inhabitants in 2014 and the city has about 30 km2 (El
Garouani et al., 2011). Founded in 789 by Moulay Idriss
1st and home to the oldest university in the world (Quar-
161
aouiyne University built in 857). Fez reached its height in
the 13th–14th centuries under the Merinids, when it
replaced Marrakesh as the capital of the kingdom.
Although the political capital of Morocco was transferred
to Rabat in 1912, Fez has retained its status as the coun-
try’s cultural and spiritual center (Aouni et al., 1992). Fez
is a religious, touristic and academic center. Due to its
importance, the historic Medina of Fez was added to the
UNESCO World Heritage List in 1981. Over the past
20 years, there were many problems and challenges posed
by the rapid growth of Fez just like every other city in
Morocco.
In fact, the demand for infrastructure, basic services and
housing in expanding urban area in Fez are on the increase.
Moreover, provision of education, health, transportation,
water and sanitation services should be accelerated in
urban centers.
3. Methodology
Present study is based on spatial remote sensing data as
well as non-spatial data available from various sources for
different periods. Urban development has led to expansion
of the cityscape of Fez, leading to changes in land use. The
study specifically focuses on interpreting the city’s land use
change patterns and growth based on satellite and demo-
graphic data.
Our approach combined spring and summer images. In
the summer image, the Fez urban area appears unvegetated
and is distinguishable from forests and orchards. However,
the spring image is needed to separate vegetated areas from
urban areas with significant amounts of asphalt and con-
crete and other impervious surfaces that are spectrally sim-
ilar to bare soil in a summer image. The importance of
multi-temporal imagery was confirmed by determining
the transformed divergences for the dataset (Two images
162 A. El Garouani et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 6 (2017) 160–169

N
Atlantic Ocean
Morocco

Algeria
Fez

Mauritania

Mali

Fig. 2. Location of the study area.

in 1984 and two images in 2013). Compared to the single
dates, both the average and the minimum separability of
classes were increased by the combination of spring and
summer images.
This research uses Landsat images to calculate VSW
(vegetation-soil–water) index images, that distinguish
clearly between vegetation, soil and water elements on
the image. This VSW index image is the basis for detecting
clearly urban areas (My Vo Chi et al., 2009). The VSW
index is calculated by the scatter plot of red band versus
near-infrared band, which are common in almost of all
types of satellite imagery (Fig. 3). That consists to trans-
form or analyze a feature space mathematically to isolate
Vegetaon
groups of pixels that may be related. Each axis represents
DNs from one satellite band and plot each pixel in the fea-
ture space from an image using its DNs.
Image processing software has been used for geometric
correction of satellite data, supervised classification, accu-
racy assessment of classification, land use maps (1984 &
2013), change detection, final output maps etc.
GIS software has been used for the digitization, integra-
tion, overlay and presentation of the spatial and non-
spatial data of land use change in the city. Field surveys
were performed throughout the study area using Global
Positioning System (GPS) to obtain accurate location point
data for each land use class included in the classification
scheme. Fig. 4 presents the methodology used to produce
maps of land use change and urban expansion. Table 1 pre-
sents the classification units of land use identified in the
study area.

Soil
3.1. Satellite imagery

To accomplish the objectives of the present study, four

Near infrared reflectance

available satellite images were obtained from the United

States Geological Survey (USGS) databases online
resources.
It was important to utilize images covering the summer
season to ensure that agricultural land surrounding Fez are
fully assessed.
Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Operational Land
Imager-Thermal Infrared Sensor (OLI_TIRS) data have
several advantages for this application: synoptic view, dig-
ital, GIS compatible data, availability of data since 1984,
and economical costs. This paper extends the methods
Water and results of our previous works (El Garouani et al.,
Red reflectance 2012, 2014, 2015) and of the present contribution.
Data used in the research include the multi-temporal
Fig. 3. Scatter plot of TM4 (Y-axis) and TM3 (X-axis). dataset and topographic maps:
 A. El Garouani et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 6 (2017) 160–169 163

Table 2
Spectral bands description of Landsat TM.
Bands Wavelength (mm)
Band 1 – Blue 0.45–0.52
Band 2 – Green 0.52–0.60
Band 3 – Red 0.63–0.69
Band 4 – Near Infrared 0.76–0.90
Band 5 – Shortwave Infrared 1 1.55–1.75
Band 6 – Thermal 10.40–12.50
Band 7 – Shortwave Infrared 2 2.08–2.35

Before analysis, the images were geometrically cor-

rected. During geometric correction, control points are
detected on the topographic maps and the satellite images
with RMS errors that are estimated below 0.5 pixel. After
that, the images for 1984 and 2013 were registered on Lam-
bert Conform Conic Projection, datum Merchich, zone I
(North Morocco).
A subset image was created from each Landsat image
for subsequent treatment and classification (Fig. 5).

3.2. Image classification

Fig. 4. Flowchart of spatial and temporal changes in urban land cover. Image classification is a conventional change detection
method. The advantage of image classification is the ability
Table 1
to create a series of land cover maps. We applied the max-
Land cover classification scheme. imum likelihood supervised classification (MLC) method
Level-I Level-II
for time series of Landsat bands and VSW index.
The maximum likelihood algorithm is one of the most
Building Residential and industrial
area
widely used in the classification of satellite imagery. The
Agriculture Crop land, olive trees, method is based on the likelihood that each pixel belongs
land orchard to a particular class. The basic theory assumes that these
Forest Forest likelihoods are equal for all classes and that input bands
Natural land Rangeland are uniformly distributed. The method requires a signifi-
Water bodies River, lakes, dam
cant calculation time and is based on a normal distribution
of the data in each band in the classification. It tends to
over-classify signatures with relatively large values in the
 Landsat TM and OLI-TIRS images (For 08-18-1984,
covariance matrix (Vorovencii and Muntean, 2013).
04-15-1985, 06-15-2013 and 08-18-2013) – Google earth
MLC is performed according to the following steps
images (09-12-2013).
(Richards and Jia, 1993). The method consisted in choos-
 Aerial photographs – Topographic maps.
ing the training samples for each of the desired classes from
 Demographics and census data (1982, 1994, 2004 and
the color composite image. During the training phase, 40
2014).
training sites were selected by on-screen digitization of
 Urban development plan of Fez – Field observations,
specific polygons (5 training samples by thematic class).
etc.
The files obtained were saved and used for the image
Landsat images are described below: Table 3
The Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) sensor was carried Spectral bands description of Landsat OLI.
on Landsat 4 and Landsat 5, and images consist of seven Bands Wavelength (mm)
spectral bands with a spatial resolution of 30 m for Bands Band 1 – Ultra Blue (coastal/aerosol) 0.43–0.45
1–5 and 7 (Table 2). Band 2 – Blue 0.45–0.51
Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) images con- Band 3 – Green 0.53–0.59
Band 4 – Red 0.64–0.67
sist of nine spectral bands with a spatial resolution of 30 m
Band 5 – Near Infrared (NIR) 0.85–0.88
for Bands 1–7 and 9. The ultra-blue Band 1 is useful for Band 6 – Shortwave Infrared1 1.57–1.65
coastal and aerosol studies. Band 9 is useful for cirrus Band 7 – Shortwave Infrared2 2.11–2.29
cloud detection. The resolution for Band 8 (panchromatic) Band 8 – Panchromatic 0.50–0.68
is 15 m (Table 3). Band 9 – Cirrus 1.36–1.38
164 A. El Garouani et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 6 (2017) 160–169

08-18-1984 04-15-1985

08-18-2013 06-15-2013

09-12-2013

Fig. 5. False color composites of the Landsat and Google Earth images showing Fez in 1984 and 2013.

classification. Each training field was assigned a number By using GIS technique (convert vector, overlay and cal-
from 1 to 8 representing land cover classes including: culate), the urban expansion information (areas, the
water, urban, industrial area, rangeland, olive trees, orch- replacement of land covers to urban area) was assessed
ard, forest and agriculture. over the study periods. The areas identified as urban in
 A. El Garouani et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 6 (2017) 160–169 165

Fig. 6. The land cover maps of Fez in 1984 and 2013.

2013, but not developed in 1984 had a high greenness value
(due to vegetative cover) in the 1984 imagery and thus had
low to no impervious surface in the 1984 time period.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Land use analysis
Urbanization is a major cause of land use changes and
land conversions. It makes unpredictable and long lasting
changes on the landscape. An important aspect of change
detection is to determine what is actually changing to what
i.e. which land use class is changing to the other. Analyzing
the spatial and temporal changes in land use and land
cover is one of the effective ways to understand the current
environmental status of an area and ongoing changes
(Arvind et al., 2006, Yuan et al., 2005; Zubair, 2006).
The land use maps of two points in time, that is, 1984
and 2013 based on automatic classification and visual inter-
pretation respectively depict land use categories changes
166 A. El Garouani et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 6 (2017) 160–169

Table 4
Error Matrix Analysis of field sites (columns) against Landsat classification (rows).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Total ErrorC Accuracy
a-1984
Water 1 130 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 133 0.02 97.74
Urban 2 0 230 9 0 0 0 0 0 239 0.04 96.23
Industrial area 3 0 0 99 0 0 2 0 0 101 0.02 98.02
Rangeland 4 5 20 16 600 0 13 0 0 654 0.08 91.74
Olive trees 5 15 1 0 0 115 13 0 9 153 0.25 75.16
Orchard 6 0 0 38 0 0 165 0 0 203 0.19 81.28
Forest 7 0 0 0 0 2 0 70 0 72 0.03 97.22
Agriculture 8 3 0 0 14 1 27 58 220 323 0.32 68.11
Total 153 251 162 614 118 223 128 229 1878
ErrorO 0.15 0.09 0.39 0.02 0.03 0.26 0.45 0.04
Accuracy 84.97 91.63 61.11 97.72 97.46 73.99 54.69 96.07
b-2013
Water 1 284 0 0 6 20 1 0 0 311 0.10 91.32
Urban 2 0 68 14 0 0 4 0 0 86 0.21 79.07
Industrial area 3 0 0 140 0 0 8 0 0 148 0.06 94.59
Rangeland 4 40 0 4 207 0 25 0 0 276 0.33 84.42
Olive trees 5 2 0 0 0 233 2 1 10 248 0.07 93.95
Orchard 6 18 0 30 0 2 162 0 3 215 0.37 66.05
Forest 7 0 0 0 0 0 22 172 0 194 0.11 88.66
Agriculture 8 23 7 0 58 46 50 16 242 442 0.45 54.75
Total 367 75 188 271 301 274 189 255 1920
ErrorO 0.28 0.09 0.26 0.24 0.33 0.41 0.09 0.05
Accuray 77.38 90.67 74.47 76.38 77.41 59.12 91.01 94.90
ErrorO = Errors of Omission (expressed as proportions) – ErrorC = Errors of Commission (expressed as proportions).

Table 5
Land use change between 1984 and 2013 (hectares).
Land use 08-18-1984 08-18-2013 Change (2013–1984) Percent change %
1 Water 98 339 241 247
2 Urban 2 041 4 503 2 462 121
3 Industrial area 116 167 51 43
4 Rangeland 3 023 3 140 117 4
5 Olive trees 1 100 2 081 981 89
6 Orchard 1 211 1 502 291 24
7 Forest 641 622 -19 -3
8 Agriculture 38 761 34 637 -4 124 -11

such as residential, agriculture, industrial, water body, for-
est, etc (Fig. 6). The growth of urban area and accompany-
ing increases in amount of impervious surface area are
readily apparent.
An independent sample of an average of 30 polygons,
with about 250 pixels for each selected polygon, was ran-
domly selected from each classification to assess classifica-
tion accuracies. Error matrices as cross-tabulations of the
mapped class vs. the reference class were used to assess
classification accuracy (Congalton and Green, 1999). Over-
all accuracy, user’s and producer’s accuracies, and the
Kappa statistic were then derived from the error matrices
(Table 4).
4.2. Change detection
Following the classification of imagery from the individ-
ual years, a multi-date post-classification comparison
change detection algorithm was used to determine changes
in land cover in the interval; 1984–2013. According to the
results from 1984 to 2013, the urban change was large,
urban areas increased from 2041 ha (1984) to 4503 ha
(2013) (Table 5).
Error matrices were used to assess classification accu-
racy and are summarized in Table 4. The overall accuracies
for 1984 and 2013 were, respectively, 87% and 78.5%.
User’s (Field) and producer’s (Landsat classification) accu-
racies of individual classes were consistently high, ranging
from 55% to 98%.
Classification maps were generated for two years (Fig. 6)
and the individual class area and change statistics are sum-
marized in Table 5. From 1984 to 2013, urban area
increased approximately 2462 ha (121%) and olive trees
increased 981 ha (89%) while non-orchard agriculture
decreased 4124 ha (11%) and forest decreased 19 ha (3%).
For the water body surfaces there is an increase of 247%.
 A. El Garouani et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 6 (2017) 160–169
This large increase can be explained by the construction of
two dams (El Gaada in the East and Dhar Mehrez in the
South) and, on the other hand, by the heavy rainfall in
2013, which allowed the emergence of wetlands in the
NW (Table 5).
The relationship between population growth and
growth in urban land area as determined from the
Landsat-derived change maps was also examined. Devel-
opment patterns of Fez reflect the distribution of popula-
tion and households because residential land uses take
over all the land that is developed (HCP, 2015). The aver-
age annual growth in urban area determined from the
Landsat change detection was 4.2% from 1984 to 2013.
This compares to an annual population growth rate of
approximately 3.9% from 1982 to 2014. So the growth in
urban area is higher than the population growth rate. Pop-
ulation and urban expansion data were also tabulated
(Table 6). An urban sprawl index (USI) was calculated as
the ratio of urban expansion to population increase
(OECD, 2013). The urban sprawl index measures the
growth in urban area over time adjusted for the growth
in population. When the population changes, the index
measures the increase in the urban area over time relative
to a benchmark where the built-up area would have
increased in line with population. The index is equal to zero
when both population and urban area are stable over time.
It is larger than zero when the growth of the urban area is
greater than the growth of population, i.e. the density of
the metropolitan area has decreased.
In Fez, the USI = 4.2/3.9 = 1.08. It is slightly higher
than zero, so the urban area is slightly higher than the pop-
ulation growth. This index provides a way to assess the
degree of sprawl for each region.
To further evaluate the results of land cover conver-
sions, a matrix of land cover changes from 1984 to 2013
was created (Table 7). In the table, unchanged pixels are
located along the major diagonal of the matrix. These
results indicate that increases in urban areas mainly came
from conversion of agricultural, rangeland and orchard
land to urban uses during the period, 1984–2013. Of the
2462 ha of total growth in urban land use, 22 65 ha was
converted from agricultural land, 82 ha from orchard and
70 ha from rangeland. We note that 70 ha of rangeland
was converted to urban between 1984 and 2013, while at
the same time, 5 ha of urban was converted to rangeland.
These changes may be classification errors. Classification
errors may also cause other unusual changes. For example,
288 ha of agricultural land changed to rangeland and 42 ha
Table 6
Comparison of urban area estimates from Landsat classifications and the demographics and census data.
Year 1982 1994 2004
Population 494 300 770 200 951 871
Year 1984
Urbanization (ha) 2 041
167
of rangeland changed to agricultural land. These changes
are most likely associated with omission and commission
errors in the Landsat classifications change map. Registra-
tion errors and edge effects can also cause apparent errors
in the determination of change vs. no-change.
This comparative approach has demonstrated how land-
scape changes can be derived from satellite imagery in the
urban spatial structure. Interpretation of Fez’s growth over
a period of 29 years allows a deeper understanding of
growth mechanisms, underlying drivers of urban expan-
sion, and their effects on local livelihoods.
According to our observations, urban sprawl has a neg-
ative impact on infrastructure and the sustainability of Fez.
The information on land use change reveals both the desir-
able and undesirable changes and classes that are ‘‘rela-
tively” stable overtime. This information serves as a vital
tool in decisions making and policy formulation by the
local authority. For example, due to urban expansion,
Fez lacks vegetation cover. Needless to say that vegetation
and open green spaces (parks) are the most important
parameters of quality of urban environment assessment.
Hence, a vigorous focus needs to be given to grow more
trees and also develop green belts that can reduce a city’s
ecological footprint and carbon emissions significantly. A
suitable strategy to reclaim industrial wastelands is also
required.
On the other hand, as the city grows in size and popula-
tion, harmony among the spatial, social and environmental
aspects of a city and between its inhabitants becomes of
paramount importance. Urban development should be
guided by a sustainable planning and management vision
that promotes interconnected green space, a multi-modal
transportation system, and mixed-use development.
Diverse public and private partnerships should be used to
create sustainable and livable communities that protect his-
toric, cultural, and environmental resources. In addition,
policymakers, regulators and developers should support
sustainable site planning and construction techniques that
reduce pollution and create a balance between built and
natural systems. So, what innovative approaches can be
taken up to achieve this goal? This work will help to find
answers to this question. In study area, some strategies
should be adopted by the local authorities and stakeholders
including:
- Provision of adequate and affordable housing for all.
- Ensuring environmental sustainability.
- Good governance and enhanced urban development.
2014 2014–1982 Percent change (%) Annual growth (%)
1 112 072 617 772 125 3.9
2013 2013–1984 Percent change (%) Annual growth (%)
4 503 2 462 121 4.2
168 A. El Garouani et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 6 (2017) 160–169

Table 7
Matrix of land cover and changes (ha) from 1984 to 2013.
Water Urban Industrial area Rangeland Olive trees Orchard Forest Agriculture 2013 Total
Water 95 0 0 5 1 119 0 120 339
Urban 0 2 027 1 70 47 82 10 2 265 4 503
Industrial area 0 6 115 4 5 6 0 32 167
Rangeland 1 5 1 2 826 5 9 5 288 3 140
Olive trees 0 1 0 49 1 016 23 6 985 2 081
Orchard 1 2 0 24 4 966 0 506 1 502
Forest 0 0 0 3 0 1 616 1 622
Agriculture 1 0 0 42 22 5 3 34 563 34 637
1984 Total 98 2 041 116 3 023 1 100 1 211 641 38 761 46 990

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5. Conclusion
Through this research, the urban expansion of the Fez
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The classification and VSW Index was able to delineate
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assessing the accuracy of change detection maps; and ana-
lyzing the major urban land use change patterns in relation
to population growth.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the Sidi Mohamed Ibn
Abdellah University (Fez, Morocco) and the Fulbright
Foreign Scholarship Program for the funding of this
research conducted at the University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA and at the Faculty of
Science and Techniques (Fez, Morocco). The authors also
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