Critical analysis of rural-urban transitions and transformations in Lucknow city, India

Abstract

An unplanned urban sprawl is emerging as a major threat for urban development, especially in developing countries. In recent decades, ever increasing population and urbanization has led to the urban sprawl. The dynamic nature of urbanization creates ambiguities in measurements of urbanization growth and its extent. Temporal analysis of land-use/land-cover (LULC) and identification of transition points are required for sustainable development of the city. Therefore, the sustainable model is required for critical analysis of urbanization and its impact. This paper analyzes the spatiotemporal dynamics of the urbanization process at an urban, suburban, sub-rural and rural level that has occurred in Lucknow, the capital city of the state Uttar Pradesh of India. The micro-level study has been performed to measure the extent and growth of urbanization. The model is processed using remotely sensed satellite data of Landsat sensor of the year 1995, 2005 and 2016. The workflow is initiated using LULC classification map of two decades 1995–2016. The classification result depicts an increased built-up area i.e., 77.15 sq. km to 143.70 sq. km from 1995 to 2005 and increased to 199.92 sq. km from 2005 to 2016. The accuracy assessment of LULC is found to be 90%, 92% and 94% for 1995, 2005 and 2016 respectively. The micro- level analysis is performed using urban landscape quantification in which urbanness analysis of each pixel is estimated and then the pixel is allocated according to built-up densities of spatial area. Further these densities are classified in seven classes those are (i) Urban built-up, (ii) Suburban built-up, (iii) Rural built-up, (iv) Urbanized open land (UOL), (v) Captured open land (COL), (vi) Rural open land (ROL) and, (vii) Water. Finally, the urban footprint maps are generated using the results of urban landscape quantification. The critical and detailed analysis of the peri-urban interface (PUI) is performed by demarcating the villages where significant changes are observed and integrated with the driving factors responsible for the changes. The expansion analysis is performed for quantifying the sprawl taking place in the city. Mainly four types of expansions are identified and mapped that are infill, extension, leapfrog and ribbon expansions. Land surface temperature (LST) analysis is performed over the study area for analyzing the adverse effect of urbanization over the transition points (Villages). Land surface temperature variation has been monitored over these transition points and their unfavorable effects on the environment.