Beschreibung:
Urbanization is a global process and a consequence of changing socio-economic conditions leading to transformations of land cover and land use. This systematic review aims to analyze the relationship between urbanization and land cover change (LCC) in the five Arab countries of Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and the West Bank region in Palestine. The study used qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze existing data and literature on the topic. One of the main findings of the review was that urban expansion leads to many negative social and ecological outcomes. On one hand, the available data and literature were insufficient to accurately characterize drivers and outcomes of LCC. On the other hand, this is attributed to the significant variation in data between case studies, making it difficult to generalize the results to all studied countries. This highlighted the importance of understanding the multiple drivers of urbanization, including socioeconomic development and land use policies, to better predict and mitigate negative consequences of LCC. Results showed that the relationship between urbanization and LCC is complex, whereby drivers interact in different ways depending on the location, size, and type of the study area. The review also indicates the need for more comprehensive and consistent data to better understand the social-ecological effects of urbanization processes