Monitoring Change in Urbanization and Green Space for Eastern Indian Cities in 30 Years-A Comparison between Kolkata and Bhubaneswar

Abstract

Advancement in technology has made a new sphere of geospatial exploration. Application of geoinformatics in Landuse and Landcover study has made quantitative analysis most clear. Urbanization process is an inevitable factor in developing countries like India. Last 30 years eastern India has also been changed itself in terms of urban development. Kolkata and Bhubaneswar are two most important cities in eastern India where urban growth has taken place rapidly. Landuse and landcover pattern has also changed here with time. Urbanization process of both cities has been identified using satellite images taken from USGS. Applying satellite images, this paper has investigated about the urban green spaces that has been changed with time also depth of urbanization has been studied to find out an overall ecological balance in these cities. Different LULC classes has been chosen to define the ecology. Details about landscape matrices has been applied which are necessary to get the result. Urban Index (UI), Urban expansion index (UX) and Urban green index (UGI) has been used to calculate and compare results with both the cities. Geospatial analysis has been processed maintain time interval of 15 years to better understand the change that affected on land with time. Kolkata is one of the most urbanized cities as it has large history of urbanization whereas Bhubaneswar is also has developed with time, it has been selected as smart city for maintaining a holistic growth approach. Quantitative analysis and application of LecoS made the results more specific and appropriate to understand the actual relationship between growth of cities and greenspace towards sustainability.