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The growth and urban expansion of cities
We all know that urban areas are growing by leaps and bounds and not always the Urban sprawl of a city can be beneficial and effective or leave a minimal footprint on the environmental impact and the ecosystems that surround us.
From this perspective, we must begin to be aware that the analysis of the expansion of cities and its planning provides positive and negative information that must be analyzed by urban experts who need a global vision and a huge amount of data to draw the conclusions that will benefit us to ensure a sustainable and coherent urban development in the cities of the future.
Now, from the Google Earth Timelapse platform and viewer we can begin to better understand urban growth and how it occurs in cities, towns, what is its process from the perspective of observation or simply studying any part of the Earth.
With the Google Earth Timelapse viewer we can easily identify urban growth
This recently updated tool - Google Timelapse - with a huge amount of data and images with a higher sharp quality, provides us with visual information since 1984 that, although it may sound like a long time ago, actually many landscapes and features of the Earth They have changed dramatically from then until today.
The next vision is to the north of Saudi Arabia, the area covered by the underground water supply and management of the large irrigation systems to maintain the green fields in Al-Busayta, Al-Jouf (North Saudi Arabia).
32 years of changes on a database of more than 5 million images via satellites acquired in the last three decades will provide us with a quick and easy overview of planning that is accentuated in many cities, the deterioration of our soils or how to avoid uncontrolled urban sprawl.
The interactive experience of Google Timelapse allows the user to explore changes to the Earth's surface like we've never seen before, revealing a new, sharper view of our planet with colors that have increased their realism and fewer distracting elements for data analysis. An example from Dubai …
Panoramic views or the option to enlarge or reduce according to zoom to start exploring our new timelapses or to be able to create comparisons between different years are some of the abilities of the new application that will undoubtedly benefit urban planners, researchers, scientists or journalists from detecting possible changes or map and quantify differences in the Earth's surface. (We also remember the article on how to create 3d maps that may be useful)
The application suggests some examples of urban sprawl that are quickly and visually recognized; from Dubai through Las Vegas, Madrid, Barcelona, cities like Mexico or New York or approaching less populated areas such as Antarctic glaciers and the devastating example of the Aral Sea.
Las vegas reproduction:
Reproduction of the Aral Sea and its disappearance:
It is also worth seeing the urban expansion of the city of Beijing or Shanghai (China) over the last three decades. The following reproduction is from Shanghai… Impressive the advance of excessive urbanism!….
It must be remembered that many environmental problems that we know in different continents, their origin is in the unstoppable advance of urban areas. International transport networks, the global economy, large-scale social and demographic changes combined with legislative differences between the different countries that regulate urban planning, are some of the driving forces behind this phenomenon that is really devastating the balance between cities. and nature.
A report that confirms the bad planning that is practiced in Europe is the study called Urban sprawl in Europe whose conclusions are devastating … "More than a quarter of the territory that makes up the European Union is currently already urbanized"… With the problem that the life expectancy of Europeans is greater every year, more people, who also live alone, exerting greater pressure on living space and land occupation.
We leave a video of how Google Timelapse works Earthto get an idea of what can be done. The example refers to creating a Tour on a specific area …
Understanding how the widening of cities and growth of cities In the face of more transport infrastructures (See also TOD cities), an incessant occupation of land or a higher energy consumption is and will be a priority in the future.
These factors are detrimental to the environment or an incessant increase in greenhouse gas emissions causing irreparable changes in climate change or greater noise or air pollution that irremediably affects the inhabitants of cities.
Uncontrolled urban expansion directly affects our quality of life and therefore many other factors, such as the health of the inhabitants of urban areas. Concepts such as the resilience of cities or sustainable urban development are and will be the foundations that will constitute the construction of more friendly cities for all.
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