Modelling the spatial impact of regional planning and climate change prevention strategies on land consumption in the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area 2017-2030

Urban sprawl is a ubiquitous with a complex network of driving forces and human and natural impacts on various scales of the coupled human-environment urban system. In Germany, a land consumption of 30 ha per day is envisaged. In that regard, the effect of growing metropolitan areas on the climate of local neighborhoods becomes more and more a topic in regional planning. Accordingly, the objectives of the study are a) to contribute to the climate change related land cover simulation efforts in Germany in a spatially explicit manner with a resolution of 30 m, b) to investigate future land consumption rates and population growth rates having a view on goal 11 of UN's SDG, and c) analyze the spatial impact of planning policies in regard to land use planning and official climate change prevention strategies using Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area (RRMA) in Western Germany as a study area. The study makes use of land use and land cover classification of multispectral satellite data and the derivation of land surface temperature based on Landsat satellite in order to calibrate and validate the urban growth model SUSM (scenario-based urban growth simulation model). Two scenarios for future land consumption 2030 are implemented and the future impacts of urban growth with the projection of land consumption rate (LCR), population growth rate (PGR), and LCRPGR index on municipality level, as well as the impact on regions vulnerable to climate change evaluated. The comparison of simulated urban growth to observed urban growth from 2005 to 2017 shows that the PA of SUSM for historic scenario is 68.06% with an overall accuracy of 97.15%, a Matthews correlation coefficient of 0.66, a figure of merit of 0.51 and area under curve of 0.84. The total quantity of new urban areas of our SUSM simulation 2030 were approximately 283 km(2). While the difference in the simulated total quantity is nearly zero, the simulated allocation of new urban areas across the districts can differ by up to 25 km(2) in the two scenarios. The number of municipalities with efficient urban land development rates increases in the SUSM scenario where no regional land development plan has been incorporated. This holds true for the number of municipalities with inefficient land use where even an increase from no plan to plan can be observed. LCRPGR is negative in most municipalities reflecting opposing trends of population and land consumption development. Most of new urban areas are distributed in open spaces important for the regional climate change prevention strategy. 32.98 % of new urban areas in our region of interest can be found in these zones in the planning scenario and 25.76 % in the scenario without planning information in SUSM model. It can be concluded that regional planning in RRMA region has no positive effect on the interregional development of future land consumption in terms of quantity, allocation, and impact on climate change prevention.

Automated summary

Urban sprawl is a complex issue with various driving forces and impacts on human and natural systems. This study focuses on the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area in Germany and uses satellite data to analyze land use and temperature to investigate the effects of future land consumption and population growth on the climate. The study also evaluates the spatial impact of planning policies on land use and climate change prevention. The findings suggest that regional planning in the study area does not have a positive effect on interregional land consumption and climate change prevention.