## 3 Results
### Macro-Class-Based LULC Classification  
The classification based on macro-classes represented a course scheme to generate four of the main land uses found in Coatzacoalcos. These macro-classes are water, built-up, vegetation and bare soil. The spatial distribution of them can be observed in Figure 4. Graphically, one can see that the terrestrial surface is proportionally divided into three land uses without considering water. Most of the urbanization or built-up areas are in the north and south of the city near the river, as they were sites of the first settlers since the foundation of the city. However, the south potential flood areas and their development \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c} \hline  & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**MDM**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**SAM**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**MLC**} \\
**Year** & **OP** & **K** & **OP** & **K** & **OP** & **K** \\ \hline
2015 & 89.12 & 0.85 & 88.89 & 0.85 & 93.28 & 0.91 \\
2016 & 88.91 & 0.85 & 88.91 & 0.85 & 90.72 & 0.88 \\
2017 & 89.31 & 0.86 & 89.28 & 0.86 & 95.36 & 0.94 \\
2018 & 89.53 & 0.86 & 89.27 & 0.87 & 98.14 & 0.98 \\
2019 & 90.13 & 0.87 & 89.90 & 0.86 & 90.02 & 0.87 \\
2020 & 90.13 & 0.87 & 89.87 & 0.86 & 99.34 & 0.99 \\
2021 & 89.67 & 0.86 & 89.43 & 0.86 & 96.95 & 0.96 \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 6: Precision assessment of the macro-class-based classification for 2017 under three classification methods. Figure 3: Maps of the macro-class-based classification for three classification methods for 2017: Top: minimum distance. Middle: spectral angle mapping. Bottom: maximum likelihood. Units: meters. Projection: WGS84 / UTM Zone 15N. have been delayed, and small changes can be observed. It can also be seen that both north and south areas contain significant patches of vegetation, which, including the creation of green areas, is a good practice in urbanization development. However, urbanization in the west area of the city seemed to increment over the study period, but no vegetation buffers were observed in those zones. This indicates the absence of good practices in urbanization and government decisions in terms of territorial planning as well as the economic, social, cultural and environmental unconsciousness of new developers [70]. These zones may provoke a higher temperature sensation or heat islands, which might translate into health problems for the inhabitants [71]. Additionally, bare soil areas seemed to increase over time and were more prominent in the west area of the study. As seen in Figure 4, bare soil replaced areas of vegetation and also increased close to developed areas. These changes can be attributed to water availability during the growing season and afforestation during the development of urbanization. In terms of vegetation, the east part of the city seemed to remain unaltered, except for zones near Allende Village in the northeastern and southeastern parts of the city, where the industries and petrochemical complexes are located and trigger the soil degradation. Numerically, Table 7 supports the claim observed on the above maps. Pixels representing water show small variations attributed to possible changes in the surface water balance, but a more refined classification is needed to understand how these variations occurred. The maximum percentage of water land use was 28.58% in 2017, whereas its minimum was 28.43% in 2019. Urbanization or man-made construction increased from 19.88% in 2015 to 20.21% in 2021. This increment can be explained by the trend observed in Figure 5, which shows the last six 5-year censuses. Coatzacoalcos had a mean population growth rate from 1995 to 2015 equal to 2.68%. However, we can observe that a rate equal \(-0.54\%\) was shown in 2020. This means that population growth decreased in the last census. This variation can be illustrated with the reported built-up information, where man-made construction showed similar increments on a year-to-year basis. Nonetheless, the growth from 2019 to 2020 was its minimum, and no change was seen in 2021.