Urban Growth Simulations of Cities with Congruent Spatial Area Using the Sleuth Model in the Context of the Developing World

Heterogeneous and unplanned urban growth, with inadequate infrastructure and smaller housing and built up areas is a common feature in developing countries. The existing modelling approaches over the years in understanding urban heterogeneity, however, may not be able to apprehend heterogeneous urban growth and the various urban forms that manifest. In this study, an attempt was made to test the suitability and the performance of the SLEUTH (an acronym for slope, land use, excluded area, urban extent, transport-network and hill shade) cellular automata (CA) model in capturing fragmented growth of some selected cities in northern Nigeria. Three city-couples (Kano/Funtua, Kaduna/Katsina, Malumfashi/Bakori) with congruent area size as control were simulated. The results showed that in each city couple, the more expansive city with the most compact urban settlement pattern had a better calibration and higher prediction accuracy. The study showed that cities in developing countries like Nigeria can effectively be modeled with SLEUTH. However, the limitation of the model is centered on the scale and urban settlement type, which play an in important role in the success of the calibration of the model