Quantifying green cover change for sustainable urban planning: A case of Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Selangor, Malaysia;2. Center of Excellence for Sustainable Innovation and Research Initiative (CESIRI), Port Harcourt Polytechnic, Rivers State, Nigeria;3. Department of Agribusiness and Bio-resource Economics, Universiti Putra, Malaysia;4. ICTP Campus Strada Costiera 11, Trieste 34151, Italy;5. School of Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia;6. Centre for Tropical Climate Change System, Institute of Climate Change, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia;1. Department of Recreation and Ecotourism, Faculty of Forestry, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia;2. Department of Forest Production, Faculty of Forestry, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia;3. School of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Semenyih, Selangor, Malaysia;4. Department of Forest Management, Faculty of Forestry, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia;5. Lincoln Centre for Water and Planetary Health, School of Geography, University of Lincoln, Lincoln LN6 7TS, UK;6. Biodiversity Unit, Institute of Bioscience, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia |
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| Abstract: | Despite the numerous benefits of urban green cover, urban land development has led to its destruction and degradation, including in Malaysia. In this study, time series Landsat satellite imagery were used to monitor green cover changes in Kuala Lumpur (KL), the largest and capital city of Malaysia. An advanced satellite image processing technique that considers the mixed-pixel problem was employed to determine the fraction of green cover in each Landsat pixel. Results show that the total green coverage in Kuala Lumpur decreased by 3% over the first study period, from 6564 ha in 2001–5,891 ha in 2013. However, it increased by 4% in the second, from 6215 ha in 2014–7,310 ha in 2016, and now green cover is 30% of the total land area of KL. These periods were selected to observe the changes in green cover before and after implementation of the “Greening KL” program, which was aimed to plant 100,000 trees in KL by year 2020. Most of the increase in green cover was contributed by trees planted along streets and in recreational parks. Other findings include a loss of ∼9% of green cover in two public parks compared to their total gazetted area, and a loss of green area in other forested parts of KL. Focus group discussions and structured interviews with public, private and non-governmental organizations indicate that green-cover losses can be partly attributed to weak regulations and their poor enforcement. Opportunities to protect and increase green cover in KL are also explored in this study. Such approaches are urgently needed before most of the green areas disappear from the landscape of KL, exacerbating the existing environmental problems in the city. |
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| Keywords: | Urban forest Tree cover Remote sensing CLASlite Public-private partnership Gazette |
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