Modern Environmental Science and Engineering (ISSN 2333-2581) April 2017, Volume 3, No. 4, pp. 272-277 Doi: 10.15341/mese(2333-2581)/04.03.2017/007 Academic Star Publishing Company, 2017 www.academicstar.us Impact of Urbanization on Land Use/Land Cover — Case Study: The Western Part of Khartoum State, Sudan Tawhida A. Yousif 1 , Nancy I. Abdalla 2 , El-Mugheira M. Ibrahim 3 , and Afraa M. E. Adam 4 1. Department of Environmental Sciences, College of Urban Sciences, University of Alzaim Al Azhari, Sudan 2. College of Forestry and Range Science, Sudan University of Science and Technology, Sudan 3. Department of Forest Management Science, Faculty of Forest Science and Technology, University of Gezira, Sudan 4. Faculty of Geo-informatics, Future University, Sudan Abstract: LANDSAT images of the Western parts of Khartoum State were taken from 1987 to 2014 to assess the impacts of urbanization on Land use/cover using ENVI Imaging 4.5. Unsupervised IsoData method was adopted for land cover classification. Change detection statistics of the years from 1987 to 2000 show that the sand and urban areas gained 5.62 Km 2 (38%) and 4.35 Km 2 (9%) respectively. Whereas the bare land and water loss 1.02 Km 2 (9%) and 9.03 (17%) respectively. From 2000 to 2014 there was a loss of sand by 11.23 Km 2 (56%) whereas the bare land, the vegetation and urban areas gained 7.03 Km 2 (16%), 1.62 Km 2 (11%) and 2.87 Km 2 (6%) respectively. The results also show a decrease of sand, bare land and water by 5.72 Km 2 (40%), 1.97 Km 2 (4%) and 1.15 Km 2 (13%) respectively, while the residential areas and the vegetation gained 6.8 Km 2 (16%) and 2.04 Km 2 (14%) respectively from 1987 to 2014. The study concludes that urban expansion could expose the area to wind and water erosion and without sustainable management of natural resources, the whole ecosystem will be in danger. Key words: urbanization, change detection, GIS, RS 1. Introduction Urbanization, population growth and globalization are considered one of the contributing factors to climate change [1, 2] resulting in the removal of vegetation cover and deterioration of ecosystems as well as natural resources. Urbanization is seriously threat the ecosystems as well as natural resources particularly, vegetation cover. This might lead to land cover change of the whole area. Urban expansion has increased rapidly since the second half of the twentieth century [3]. According to the United Nations, 2007a, about 30% of the world population lived in urban areas in 1957, increased to 50% in 2008, and predicted to reach 70% of the world population will urbanized by Corresponding author: Tawhida A. Yousif, Ph.D., research areas/interests: urban forestry, change detection, land degradation. E-mail: tawhida12@yahoo.com. 2050. It was estimated that about 93% of urban growth will occur in developing nations, 80% of which occurring in Asia and Africa [4]. Globally, LULC changes caused by urbanization have created many environmental problems on biodiversity, air quality and water supplies [5]. The impact on air quality occurred by increasing the global atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gases during industrial revolution. Additionally, creating higher atmospheric temperature compared to the surrounding rural areas; this is due to the replacement of natural vegetation by the city surfaces (Urban Heat Island) [6, 7]. Other environmental problems include insufficient housing, traffic congestion, poor sanitation facilities, increase energy demands, increased air and water pollution and shortage of water supply [8, 9]. According to Auber (2013) [10], rapid urbanization together with changing environmental conditions, will