The new urban sprawl metric, named „Weighted Urban Proliferation“ (WUP) is based on the following definition of urban sprawl: the more area built over in a given landscape (amount of built-up area) and the more dispersed this built-up area in the landscape (spatial configuration), and the higher the uptake of built-up area per inhabitant or job (lower utilization intensity in the built-up area), the higher the degree of urban sprawl.
Weighted Urban Proliferation (WUP) metric has three components: the percentage of built-up areas, the dispersion of the built-up areas, and land uptake per person
Percentage of built-up area (PBA). PBA measures how large the built-up areas are (in % of the landscape). Values for landscapes of differing sizes can be directly compared because PBA is an intensive metric, i.e., the value does not depend on the size of the landscape.
Degree of urban dispersion (DIS). DIS characterizes the settlement pattern in a geometric perspective and is based on the distances between any two points within built-up areas (average taken over all possible pairs of points, up to a maximum distance called the horizon of perception). The farther apart the two points, the higher their contribution to dispersion. This metric is expressed in urban permeation units (UPU) per m2 of built-up area. Higher values indicate a higher dispersion (between 0 and 49.7 UPU/m2). Dispersion is weighted by the w1(DIS) function to make those parts of the landscape where built-up areas are more dispersed more clearly perceived (w1(DIS) > 1), while compact settled areas are multiplied by a lower weighting (i.e. < 1).
Land uptake per person (inhabitants and jobs) (LUP). LUP describes the use of urban built-up area by people working and living in that area. Built-up areas with many inhabitants and employees are considered to be better used and according