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da Costa, Sandra
STUDYING A MEDIUM SIZE CITY GROWTH IN BRAZIL AND ITS CONSEQUENCES USING
GEOTECHNOLOGIES
Sandra M.F. DA COSTA; Osman PINHEIRO JUNIOR
University of Vale do Paraiba
Institute of Research and Developing
Sandra@univap.br
Working Group VII/2
KEY WORDS: geotechnologies, urban growth, environmental limitations
ABSTRACT
. The city of Sáo José dos Campos is the most important city located at the Region of Paraiba River Valley,
considering the process of industrialisation. It was, and it continues being, marked by an intense industrialisation, which
started to command the growth of the municipal district after the decade of 50. The city grew without the local
government could control the process definitively. In this sense, this research detected and evaluated the changes
happened in the urban space of the city of Sáo José dos Campos and analysed the environmental occupation, as a
consequence of the process of urban growth without a town planning, using remote sensing data and techniques and a
geographical information system (geofechnologies). This research will analyse the period of larger urban
transformation, in respect to the industrialisation and recent economical changes: 1953 to 1997. A 3D model of the
urban perimeter and a slope map have been produced to investigate how the city has occupied the site, which was
assessed using digital topography data. The urban area was mapped using aerial photography obtained in 1953, 1962,
1973, and 1985, and SPOT Pan image, obtained in September 1997, all of them in scale of 1:25,000. The idea was to
verify the city performance considering the relation between growth and site (environmental limitations) using the
geotechnologies performance.
1 INTRODUCTION
According to Santos (1997), the geographical space can be considered as a group of accomplishments through functions
and shapes that come as testimony of a history written by processes of the past and of the present. This space, or space-
landscape, is the testimony of an instance of a mean of production in its concrete manifestations, the testimony of an
instance of the world. In this context, Souza (1999) and Carlos (1992) affirm that the urban space is the space
expression of the mode of production and the urban landscape, as a manifestation of the urban space, reproduces in one
moment several moments of the history.
Those concepts permit to conclude that is very important to study and to analyse the urban form and its growth to
understand the urban space, or the city, as subsidies to the urban planning. Frequently, these sort of studies show that
the cities growth is a dynamic process, constantly encroaching upon areas that are not suiTable for urban land uses,
guiding the growth of yirhan sprawl that ape often unplanned (Nagarathinam et al., 1988).
Considering this, geotechnologies (the jointed use of remote sensing and GIS technologies) have been used as an
important tools to help urban planners apprehend spatial dynamics and urban morphology. It can provide planners with
visually impacting material and a method of monitoring the urban area, which is important in the formulation and
monitoring of urban planning strategies and municipal policies. Its use has already been successfully applied to urban
studies: Li and Forster (1998), da Costa and Cintra (1999), Meinel at al. (1998), Pathan et al. (1998).
In this sense, this research detected and evaluated the changes happened in the urban space of a medium size Brazilian
city, Sáo José dos Campos, and analyzed its environmental occupation, as a consequence of the process of urban growth
with a poor structured town planning, using remote sensing data and geographical information systems
(geotechnologies). This research analysed the period of larger urban transformation for Brazil and for this city, in
respect to the industrialisation and recent economical changes: 1950 to 1997.
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part B7. Amsterdam 2000. 295
