Analysis of land use change in selected metropolitan areas in Poland based on remote sensing data

The aim of the study was to diagnose the main trends of changes in land cover in selected communes of Polish metropolitan areas. Detailed studies were conducted in deliberately selected housing estates located in the core of metropolitan area (at least one housing estate) and communes located directly at the border of cities and located on the outskirts of metropolitan areas. The examined communes also differed in the quality of natural conditions of agricultural production. The study used LANDSAT 5 TM and RapidEye satellite images from three limited-time registrations (1996/1999, 2011, 2016/2017). On the basis of remote sensing data, changes in land use were specified by presenting them in a graphic form as compilation of numerical maps. The analyses were performed on processed images (colour compositions), which were subjected to supervised classification using the maximum-likelihood technique. The quality control of supervised classification showed accuracy of 89.3% for LANDSAT 5 TM scene analyses and 91.8% for RapidEye images. Kappa coefficient for the discussed classification was: 0.84 (LANDSAT TM) and 0.89 (Rapid Eye). The results obtained for individual metropolitan areas allow to identify the directions of changes (Land Use Change Cover) taking place in them, with consideration to specificity of each of them.