Urban form dictates the urban sprawl and consequently will affect the transport and energy consumption in cities. The extent of urban sprawl will define the level of air pollution, heat island effect and influences the thermal comfort of city inhabitants. You can have a look on the article entitled "Macro-Urban Form, Transport Energy Use and

Greenhouse Gas Emissions: An Investigation for Melbourne".

Hope this could help.

Hello Shaun,

Rapid urbanization has many impacts on the local environmental conditions. Energy consumption and Air Pollution are none the less of prime importance. Apart from this, the urban water bodies are also being deteriorated (especially in developing countries, as was observed by me) due to unchecked dumping of waste. Not only the pollutants are added but also there is increased nutrification of such water bodies. Continuous nutrification leads to accelerated Eutrophication (also termed as Cultural Eutrophication). Ultimately the water bodies get shallower and shallower and gets converted in merely a land area with a depression.

Existence of Water Body has major impacts on local meteriological conditions as it affects evaporation rates and heating of earth's surface. Land surface in comparison to water surface gets heated up faster and average surface temperature of that area may increase.

Similar conditions may be observed in an area where dams are constructed. change in the micro climate and local weather conditions would easily be identified if you have before and after weather data.

I would strongly suggest proper urban planning and sustainable development if one wants development without destruction ( Though, complete elimination of deterioration can not be achieved... !)

Regards,

Manthan Tailor

Dear Shaun,

Urban sprawl; which increase the ecological disturbance by means of increasing networks, construction, utilization, waste disposal, various clearing activities and demanding various needs for the betterment of the lifestyle.

It also increase the threats to the local micro and macro eco system and climatic pattern too.

Thanks everyone, it was a really helpful insight.

Its a question rather than answer. Does anyone know, How to measure the effect of urban sprawl on micro-climate and quality of life?

When a city grows into a larger city, average travel distance to go to school and work increases. People spend more time in traveling rather than doing more productive works. Resources (such as energy, total work hours) are wasted inefficiently. Air pollution increases due to longer time to travel. People have less time for their family because they need to spend more time for transportation. Thus, quality of life reduces.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230738894_Peri-Urban_to_Urban_Landscape_Patterns_Elucidation_through_Spatial_Metrics

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229826816_Empirical_patterns_of_the_influence_of_Spatial_Resolution_of_Remote_Sensing_Data_on_Landscape_Metrics