Monitoring Urban Expansion as a Result of Refugee Fluxes in North Jordan Using Remote Sensing Techniques

The purpose of this study is to provide a rapid monitoring of the recent patterns and trends of urban growth in the north of Jordan as a result of increasing refugee fluxes from nearby countries due to the Syrian political conflict. A time series of medium spatial resolution optical satellite images have been used to describe change events in the study area. These satellite images, obtained from different sensors and which were acquired for the years 2010 and 2015, cover four governorates in the north of Jordan. Supervised classification and change analysis are used to detect if there is any expansion of urban areas in the region. The results indicate that most of the extensions and developments are in the urban fringe where the agricultural lands, range lands, bare soil, and rural settlements are converted to urban. A postclassification comparison reveals an increase in urban areas by 7.8% during the study period. The used control area in this study is recommended for future continued monitoring as the final destination of future refugees is not clear and cannot be specified from the beginning.