An analysis of land dynamics in relation to urban sprawl in the Guwahati city of Assam, India

Abstract

Urban sprawl is the growth of a settlement that occurs during urbanization. Guwahati city, located in the Kamrup Metropolitan District of Assam, India, is the hub of the northeastern states. To examine urban sprawl and the rate of population expansion during the past 30 years, research has been conducted to determine the built-up land characteristics. A temporal study using satellite images for two different years (1990 and 2020) has been carried out through GIS and remote sensing techniques, supervised classification using maximum likelihood for land use land cover preparation and raster calculator has been used to delineate NDVI and the Urban Index. The city has been divided into five buffer zones from the central growth point, and the sprawl has been analyzed for each buffer zone. The city's growth is so drastic that the built-up area has increased from 27.18% in 1990 to 47.87% in 2020. Zone-wise, the most remarkable changes have been seen in zone 2 and zone 5, up to 28.95% and 22.62%, respectively. Zone-3 counts as the minor changes in the built-up area, i.e., 6.2% due to the Ramsar site named Deeparbeel. This study will help urban planners understand the nature of sprawl and develop a feasible solution.