Sustainable Development Goal 11 and National Physical Plan Thrust 2 in Focus: Studying a Decade of Land Use and Land Cover Change in Penang Island, Malaysia, Using SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 Satellite Imagery

Urbanization profoundly influences social, economic, and environmental systems, imposing a comprehensive understanding of spatial and temporal land use and land cover (LULC) transformations. This study aims to quantify the LULC changes from 2014 to 2023 in Penang Island, Malaysia, using SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 satellite imagery with a 1.5 m spatial resolution. After preprocessing and transforming data, five LULC classes—namely built-up, forest, water bodies, agriculture and horticulture, and barren land—were classified. The Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier achieved accuracies of 90.8% in 2014, 91% in 2019, and 94.2% in 2023, with kappa coefficients of 0.85, 0.84, and 0.9, respectively. Analysis at the district level revealed that built-up area decreased by 4.53 km², forest expanded by 10.32 km², water bodies grew by 0.26 km², agriculture and horticulture increased by 8.47 km², and barren land declined by 11.84 km². Interestingly, the decline in built-up areas presents a paradox to the conventional narrative of urban growth, which typically anticipates an increase in developed land over time. This counterintuitive trend invites further inquiry into factors that may have driven such a reversal in urbanization patterns. Nevertheless, the findings align with SDG 11 and the NPP, which advocate for sustainable and resilient urban development.