Abstract
Abstract. Constantly increasing population and up-scaling economic growth has certainly contributed to fast-paced urban expansion, but simultaneously, as a result, has developed immense pressure on our natural resources. Among other unfavorable consequences, this has led to significant changes in the land use and land cover patterns in megacities all across the globe. As the impact of uncontrolled and unplanned development continues to alter life patterns, it has become imperative to study severe problems resulting from rapid development and leading to environmental pollution, disruptions in ecological structures, ever increasing pressure on natural resources and recurring urban disasters This paper presents an approach to address these challenges using geospatial data to study the land use and land cover change and the patterns and processes of urban growth. Spatio-temporal changes in land-use/land-cover were assessed over the years using multi-date high resolution satellite data. The land use classification was conducted using visual image interpretation technique wherein, study area was categorized into five different classes based on NRSC classification system namely agricultural, built-up, urban green (forest), and fallow land and water bodies. Post-classification change detection technique was used for the assessment of land-cover change and transition matrices of urban expansion were developed to quantify the changes. The results show that the city has been expanding majorly in its borders, where land masses have been converted from agriculture based rural areas to urban structures. An increase in the built-up category was observed with the transformation of agricultural and marginal land with an approximate change of 8.62% in the peri-urban areas. Urban areas are becoming more densely populated and open barren lands are converted into urban areas due to over population and migration from the rural areas of Delhi and thus increasing threat towards urban disaster. Conservation and sustainable management of various natural resources is recommended in order to minimize the impact of potential urban disasters.
Highlights
Growth in the urban sector is a complex process in a dynamic framework (Sahana, 2018)
The land use land cover map of 2008 showed that the total urban area in the south west Delhi accounts for 33.42% and the agriculture for 44.06% (Table 1)
The results showed that the Land Use/Land Cover classes have experienced rapid changes in the built-up category
Summary
Growth in the urban sector is a complex process in a dynamic framework (Sahana, 2018). There were around 53 urban agglomerations with over 1 million people in 2011 as compared to 35 in 2001, which are further expected to increase substantially in the coming years (Census of India, 2011) This tremendous growth has forced researchers to map and monitor the urban and peri-urban landscape globally. Urban development contributes to unfavorable ecological and environmental consequences such as loss of agricultural land, deforestation, loss of water bodies, alteration of natural drainage, air pollution, water contamination, health hazards, microclimatic changes (Kalnay, 2003), reduced green spaces and increased land fragmentation (Grimm, 2008; Li, 2013; Li, 2000; Pickett, 2011; Miller, 2012) This results in a major transformation of land use, surrounding environment and even community cultures, thereby altering an entire city's ecology (Kumar, 2018). An attempt has been made to quantify the land use change for the duration 2008 and 2015 and study the consequence of urban expansion on the occurring disaster
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