Ancient Defensive Structures Shape Long Term Land Use in Damghan Iran

Read the full article See related articles

Discuss this preprint

Start a discussion What are Sciety discussions?

Listed in

This article is not in any list yet, why not save it to one of your lists.
Log in to save this article

Abstract

Unregulated land-use change complicates the management of historic cities in seismic regions. Damghan, northeastern Iran, enclosed by an ~ 8.8-km defensive wall, provides a testbed to examine how fortifications shape long-term urban form. We integrated historical maps, 1955 aerial photos, declassified CORONA imagery (1972, 1981), and recent very-high-resolution satellite data to reconstruct land-use trajectories from the medieval period to 2025. All datasets were georeferenced and orthorectified; object-based image analysis with SVM classification supported change detection. Urban area grew slowly until the mid-20th century, then accelerated after the 1970s, with a persistent west–southwest bias. Despite its lost military role, the wall continued to act as a spatial boundary limiting expansion, especially along northern and southern sectors. Limited growth to the east likely reflects early wall destruction and local hydro-geomorphic constraints. Results show that historical defensive structures can shape urban development for centuries and demonstrate the value of multi-temporal remote sensing for managing heritage cities in arid regions.

Article activity feed