Abstract

Given that urbanization is considered as one of the most signicant anthropogenic alteration of the overall environment, the present study attempts to understand spatial-temporal characteristics of urban population growth and its implications on land-use as well as understanding their relationship with environmental degradation with special focus on the Kolkata, the capital city of West Bengal. Urbanization is one of the major driving forces behind the development of today's land-use and land cover system. A large number of contemporary urbanization has been characterized as urban sprawl namely in an extensive form of land-use for urban uses that have environmentally detrimental effects. There are indications of Urban sprawl and city expansion in our Study Area of Kolkata indicating expansion of settlements and built-up area and thus causing environmental degradation in the city area. The process of urbanization always had signicant implications that can affect cumulative changes in demographic characteristics and/or transformation of the physical environment; unplanned, unsystematic and rapid urbanization can cause intense impacts on various environmental aspects, specically on land and air and water. A thorough understanding of the dynamic relationship between urbanization and its generated land-cover changes thus becomes completely essential for managing environmental changes and enabling sustainability of the environment and its resources.

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