Modeling urban growth scenarios in Cairo Metropolitan Region 2035

The goal of this research was simulating future urban growth of the Cairo region from 2015 to 2035, by making use of cellular automata methodology in the SLEUTH modelling. The input data required by the model, including Slope, Land use, Exclusion, Urban growth, Transportation and Hillshade which were derived from three Landsat satellite images from 1984, 2000, and 2013 according to supervised classification. Three scenarios were designed to simulate the spatial pattern of urban growth. The first scenario is Historical growth trends to simulate the persisted growth trends by preserving the existing conditions. The second is a compact growth scenario with robust restrictions on development in areas that are outside of designated growth centers. The third scenario is growth as planned officially that integrates stricter growth plans and stronger protections on natural resource lands at a level that could be realistically accomplished with strong political obligation. Calibration of the SLEUTH model for Cairo metropolitan area manifested a high road coefficient beside similar high spread coefficient, which implies that the predicted mode of growth in Cairo are road influenced growth, and edge growth.