Urbanization and Landsat MSS albedo change in the Windsor-Québec corridor since 1972

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Abstract
Quantitative determination of anthropogenic land use change from space observations has been carried out by comparing urban area expansion in the Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec regions, three representative centres of the economic heartland of the Windsor-Quebec corridor in eastern Canada. Land use monitoring using Landsat satellite data shows a marked process of urbanization since 1972 (Montreal: + 70 per cent, Quebec: +40 per cent and Ottawa: + 11 per cent). The total amount of rural and forest land converted to urban use is estimated. The induced mean ground Multispectral Scanner (MSS) albedo decrease, computed from the corrected satellite reflectance, is in the order of −0.001 to −0 005. This impact of urbanization is inferred to be similar over south-eastern Canada, using statistical data from governmental agencies. This change could be large enough to affect the regional climate since trends of past urban growth rates and extrapolation of the present rate to the end of the century are significant.