Forecasting urban sprawl in Dhaka city of Bangladesh

Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is expected to be one of the five largest cities of the world by 2025 in terms of population. The rapid urban growth experienced by the city in the recent decades is one of the highest in the world. Urban expansion of Dhaka was slow in the 1950s, but strong growth followed the independence of Bangladesh in 1971. To understand Dhaka city growth dynamics and to forecast its future expansion by the year 2030, a self-modifying cellular automata Slope, Land use, Exclusion, Urban extension, Transportation and Hillshade model was used in this research using satellite images from 1989 to 2014. This model showed two interesting findings. First, approximately an additional 20% of the metropolitan area will be converted into built-up land by 2030 amounting to about 177 sq km. Second, the spatial trend of sprawl will be towards the north and north-west. The interpretation of depicting the future scenario as demonstrated in this research will be of great value to urban planners and decision makers, for the future planning of Dhaka.