Dynamics of Urban Sprawl and Landuse Change in Imphal of Manipur, India

Abstract

Urban areas are expanding and cities are becoming more compact due to population growth and migration. Cities in India have experienced rapid growth of population. Physical land use change has been observed today especially in the developing countries that led to shrinking of precious land, where the impact is mostly felt on agriculture land. The growing population was the main driving force of land use change. The study focused on monitoring urban land use change over a period of 45 years (1970-2015), and to assess its impact on agriculture in Imphal city and its surroundings. The study is based on secondary data and intends to identify the process of land use/land cover change over the different time period with the help of GIS imageries. The study found that the build-up area of the city had increased from 22.07 sq.km to 74.16 sq.km while agriculture areas shrank from 54.18 sq.km to 14.26 sq.km during the study period. Without proper planning and management, the excessive population growth will result to unplanned physical expansion towards the fringe areas in all direction.