Knowledge horizons Volume 5, no.
2/2013
DYNAMICS OF BUILT AREAS AND OF AGRICULTURAL
USE IN SIBIU AND SURROUNDING AREAS THROUGH
REMOTE SENSING
Abstract:
This paper highlights the essential aspects
regarding the dynamics of certain components of
the geographical landscape (agricultural use,
industrial use, town site), which has increased
greatly, especially after 2000. There have been
extensions of built surfaces especially for the
western and eastern sectors of Sibiu site, designed
for industrial or service area, at the expense of the
agricultural use. These changes have been
revealed by analyzing cartographic documents
and satellite images for various areas within Sibiu
and the surrounding areas, at scales large enough
to emphasize certain details, being made in
different time periods. The study focused on
processing and comparing maps and satellite
images for the same areas, captured in different
moments, in order to identify similarities and
differences, and to show the evolution of the town
site (especially of the industrial and service
constructions) and the evolution of the
agricultural use.
96
Senior Lecturer Teodor TODERA, PhD.
Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University
The Faculty of Tourism Geography Sibiu
Email: teotoderas@yahoo.com
Lecturer Traian CRCEA, PhD.
Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University
The Faculty of Tourism Geography Sibiu
Email: traiancracea@yahoo.com
Key words: geographical landscape
dynamics, land use, agricultural use, remote
sensing, satellite images, industrial areas
JEL Classification: Q56
Introduction
The geographical landscape represents the real,
visible aspect of a territory and it should be
understood and analyzed from systemic
perspective. Thus, it is made up of various
components among which there are established
interdependence relationships. When acting on a
component, the functionality of the entire system
is affected. .
The geographical landscape consists of three
relevant components: abiotic component (relief,
river, soil), biotic component (vegetation, fauna)
and anthropic component (town site, land use,
communication network etc.).
Knowledge horizons Volume 5, no. 2/2013
 Aspects of selective landscape elements
dynamics
From the three components, the lowest
dynamics is recorded by abiotic components,
especially relief, while the greatest and fastest
changes appear within the anthropic component.
In this respect, the human impact on landscape is
reflected through mutations recorded in the site,
evidenced by its expansions in case of increased
anthropic interventions, or restrictions when the
demographic element1 does not show a significant
impact on the landscape.
Likewise, land use represents an element which
can prove a more or less increased dynamics in the
landscape. At present, for Sibiu and surrounding
areas, the economic restructuring in the last two
decades led to remarkable landscape changes,
shown through the analysis of cartographic
documents and satellite images.
Thus, the built areas expanded considerably in
the western and eastern extremities of the town
site, by construction of an industrial park and of a
large shopping center.
The industrial park2 situated on the west of the
town site, lies on a surface of 123 123 acres and
includes over 30 companies, the most
representative being Polisano Pharmaceuticals and
Continental German Corporation. The area of
Sibiu International Airport has also registered
increased landscape dynamics in the last years,
due to the works for modernizing and extending
the runaway to allow large airplane access.
In the south-east of the town site, starting with
2006, a large shopping center appeared, composed
of Real and Carrefour hypermarkets, followed by
Baumax and Altex stores, and Promenada Mall
and Shoping City Sibiu shopping galleries. After
2008, one can also add not only Takko Fashion,
New Yorker and Deichmann, specialized in
textiles and shoes, but also the furniture store
Mobexpert, Proges, and Flanco World. Penny
Market XXL hypermarket and Cytren
representative in Sibiu are also remarkable.
Although from the administrative-territorial point
of view they belong to the commune of Selimbar,
1 3
The anthropic impact decreases considerably where the
depopulation phenomenon appears, as a consequence of
natural factors (low birth rate, migrations) or anthropic factors
(industrial pollution, military conflicts, deportations etc.)
2
The first constructions that belong to some companies in
the actual western industrial park were built starting with
2003.
Knowledge horizons Volume 5, no. 2/2013
all these built perimeters represent, in fact, eastern
extensions of Sibiu site, and, together with
Selimbar, they can represent in a near or distant
future areas or neighborhoods included3 in the site
of the town.
An important element, which reflects the
anthropic impact on the landscape, is represented
by the ring road that by-passes the town site in the
north, with a total length of 21 km of which 17 km
are highway scheme.
Under the circumstances, the agricultural use
recorded a regress, especially in the surrounding
areas of the town, mainly in the case of the natural
pastures and hayfields, and of the potato crop
lands4, in the north-west of the town.
Characteristics of the satellite images
and used cartographic material
An important aspect that must be taken into
consideration when obtaining the source material
for analyzing the dynamics of the built areas and
the land use is related to the characteristics of the
satellite images and used topographic maps. The
main characteristics taken into consideration when
selecting the satellite images, and when processing
and analyzing them, were: image resolution,
brightness and shade of grey, image contrast,
sensing capacity, spatial coverage, geometric
properties, and processing level. For multi-
temporal analysis of the built areas and industrial
areas dynamics, there have been purchased
panchromatic satellite images, and for the
qualitative analysis of the agricuural crops there
have been purchased LANDSAT 7 ETM+
multispectral satellite images in the 7 spectral
bands, radiometrically and geometrically corrected
(1G processing level).
The topographic map, scale 1:25000,
trapezoids L-35-73-C-a and L-35-73-C-b, was
used as main cartographic support. LEOWorks
software was used for processing and analyzing
the multispectral satellite images, and Quantum
GIS software was used for vectorizing and making
the geographical database.
The localities of Gusterita and Turnisor had an almost
identical evolution, and at present they are included in Sibiu,
representing peripheral districts.
4
The potato represents the main crop for the sub-
mountain depressions in the southern Transylvania (Fgras
Depression, Sibiu Depression, Sliste Depression and Apold
corridor).
970
 Georeferencing of satellite images
To make the georeferencing of satellite images
there have been used at least 6 points with
geodetic coordinates determined in the geodetic
system of the topographic map (Stereo 70).
Georeferencing was made based on the
polynomial transformation relationships, which
have been accessed by selecting the polynomial
Fig. 1. Window for measuring and introducing reference
coordinates values.
The georeferencing process involves selecting
and opening the satellite image, selecting
cartographic projection parameters, identifying
and measuring the reference points on the image,
Fig. 2. Window for interpolation method selection and Warp image
function selection to run the process
Analysis of industrial areas evolution
based on satellite images, at the expense
of the agricultural land
LANDSAT panchromatic satellite images
(band 8) from 2000, 2007 and 2012 were used to
analyze the dynamics of the industrial areas.
These satellite images were georeferenced and
were subjected to the differencing process in order
98
transformation method in the menu of the used
software.
To georeference images there have been used,
as photogrammetric reference, points of the
topographic details visible on the image, whose
coordinates were determined in the field through
GPS technology, coordinates necessary for the
transformation and resampling of the images
(Fig. 1).
introducing the geodetic coordinates of these
points and running the georeferencing process
(Fig. 2).
to select the differential details that appeared
between the used satellite recordings. The images
resulted after the differencing process were then
imported to Quantum GIS, where the topographic
details selected through differencing were
vectorized and introduced in the database, the
result being the digital map with the evolution in
time of the area built at the expense of the
agricultural lands.
Knowledge horizons Volume 5, no. 2/2013
 The case study was made on the western built in the north-west of Sibiu (Fig.4).
industrial area of Sibiu (Fig. 3) and on the area

Fig. 3. Dynamics of the western industrial area of Sibiu from

2000-2012

As we can see on the map presented at Figure than 30 company, most of them foreign-owned,
3, the industrial area (painted in purple) has a function in this industrial area, and they had an
spectacular evolution, lying on 123 acres, at the impact upon the economy of Sibiu and made
expense of the agricultural land of the town. More direct investment of over 250 million euro.

Fig. 4. Dinamica zonei construite n nord-vestul Municipiului Sibiu

n perioada 2000-2012

Analysis of land use based on satellite
images
Satellite images, especially the multispectral
ones, can be successfully used for thematic
analysis of land use, resorting, for this, to the
methods for classifying the informational content
of the satellite images and to the method of the
normalized differencing vegetation index (NDVI)
in order to determine the consistency and quality
of vegetation, this process involving a good
theoretical training of the operator.

Knowledge horizons Volume 5, no. 2/2013 990

 Analysis of the agricultural crop types
through thematic classification of the
information in the satellite images
In literature, there are two types of thematic
classification of the satellite image informational
content: supervised classification and
unsupervised classification, which are
implemented in the specialized software for
spectral processing and analysis.
Supervised classification involves analyzing
and extracting the topographic details from the
image by grouping the pixels in known classes. In
supervised classification the classes of objects on
Earth are known beforehand on restricted areas in
the images (areas called test areas or sites). In
other words, the user identifies some areas on the
image that are characteristic to each class of
established details. By image analysis, each pixel
in the image is classified into one of these
indicated classes.
After applying the supervised classification
method, the types of crops in the studied area were
automatically selected, and a new image of the
selected and classified crops was obtained, this
image being them imported to Quantum GIS and
vectorized.
Fig.5. Calculation of normalized differencing vegetation
NDVI calculation can be done with the
function of the used software, based on
multispectral images. For this, 4 (near infrared)
and 3 (red) spectral bands are used. NDVI values
are between -1 (lack of vegetation) and 1 (dense
vegetation).
The calculation formula is based on the
evidence of spectral signatures of vegetation in the
near infrared (the spectral area where the
chlorophyll has the highest reflectance), compared
to that from the red area (where light rays are
100
Unsupervised classification of multispectral
images involves creating pixel groups that
represent geographic characteristics, without
knowing beforehand what is classified. The pixels
are organized in cluster classes, based on the
spectral answer, and then it is verified if the
clusters have or do not have a meaning in the
studied digital image.
After applying the unsupervised classification
method, there were automatically selected, in a
new image, the types of crops in the studied areas,
obtaining an image of these selected crops that
was then imported to Quantum GIS and
vectorized.
Analysis of the quality of the
agricultural crop types based on
normalized differencing vegetation
index
To analyze the quality and consistency of the
agricultural crop types there was used the
normalized differencing vegetation index (NDVI).
This is a graphic indicator, a non-linear
transformation, of two spectral bands obtained in
the near infrared (NIR) and visible (red) spectrum.
absorbed by chlorophyll, which makes it reflect
the green color of healthy vegetation).
Following the analysis of the NDVI calculation
results, it resulted that, in the studied area, the
crops outside the built-up areas vary according to
the calculated NDVI value. Thus, NDVI high
values were close to 0.70 (represented by dark
green shades), and moderate vegetation by light
green color (corn, rape, hay etc). The lands with
low vegetation are characterized by low values of
0.25 and shown in yellow.
Knowledge horizons Volume 5, no. 2/2013
 Conclusions
To make a quality spectral analysis of the
information content of satellite images it is
necessary that one takes into consideration their
characteristics, like: image resolution, brightness
and shade of grey, image contrast, sensing
capacity, spatial coverage, geometric properties,
and processing. For quality georeferencing of
satellite images, the values of geodetic coordinates
of the photogrammetric reference points must be
determined din the field, with professional GPS
equipment.
During the georeferencing process, it is
recommended that one choose as georefrencing
method the polynomial transformation method, as
this ensures a more rigorous transformation,
eliminating a number of errors the Helmert
transformation methods, affine or other, cant
eliminate.
The process of multispectral processing of the
satellite images involves that the images in the
used spectral bands be first brought in the same
coordinate system through the registration system.
It is also important that, depending on the analysis
that is made and the type of searched topographic
details, the adequate classification method be used.
The analysis of the quality and consistency of
the agricultural crop types based on the
normalized differencing vegetation index (NDVI)
can me made with good results if the
characteristics of the multispectral images are
within the standard values.
Knowledge horizons Volume 5, no. 2/2013
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