Is urban development around Laem Chabang Port, Thailand, sustainable?

Mega ports are believed to urbanize their surrounding areas quickly. However, literature confirming that they actually accelerate long-term land-use development is limited. There is, hence, a need to investigate land-use changes before and after the development of a port to evaluate the interconnection and influence between such ports and their neighboring areas. This study aims to evaluate historical land-use changes between 1975 and 2021 around Laem Chabang port, the biggest container port in Thailand, using satellite images obtained from Google Earth and the U.S. Geological Survey. Standard procedures of spatiotemporal analysis were implemented for analysis. Key findings show that urbanization was rapid during the port development planning and construction phase but slowed down soon after. Accordingly, one can infer that mega ports may be considered only as a temporary catalyst for surrounding urbanization and do not bring about urbanization on a permanent basis. This study is considered important as it provides a good understanding of the relationship between urbanizing and ports and can help develop a strategy to establish a balance between coastal urban development and environmental protection.