*2.2. Methodology*

### 2.2.1. Choice of Data and Materials Used

Landsat images downloaded from the site "https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/" accessed on 27 March 2021 via the Multispectral Scanner System (acquired on 6 December 1986/ 13 December 1986), the Thematic Mapper (acquired on 14 December 1998/1 January 1999 and 22 January 2010/29 January 2010), and the Operational Land Imager (acquired on 4 January 2021/27 January 2021), with a spatial resolution of 30 m, were used to create the mosaics (two images per mosaic) from which the study area was extracted (Table 2). These images were chosen since they are free of charge and recommended for large-scale studies [31,32]. Moreover, they are particularly interesting for data-poor regions lacking recent and reliable spatial information [33]. For these reasons, the images meet the objectives of the study, despite their coarse resolution. All images were acquired during the winter dry season to minimize the effect of haze and clouds and thus facilitating the observation of larger spectral differences among landscape features [34,35]. Furthermore, the dates of acquisition of the Landsat images coincide with key periods marking the sociopolitical and economic life of the country and Port-au-Prince district in particular: (i) the fall of the Duvalier regime in 1986, the overthrow of President Aristide in 1991, and the subsequent embargo; (ii) the socioeconomic instability following the 2000 elections, the 2004–2008 hurricanes, and the 2010 earthquake; and (iii) the post-earthquake period (2010–2021). Additional data such as shapefiles illustrating the boundaries of the municipalities of the Port-au-Prince agglomeration from the Centre Nationale de l'Information Géographique et

de Statistique (CNIGS) were used. ENVI 5.3 and ArcGiS 10.5.1 software was selected for the pre-processing and spatial analysis of the acquired satellite images.


**Table 2.** Satellite images characteristics.

2.2.2. Landsat Image Processing and Classification
