Unplanned urban built-up growth creates problem in human adaptability: Evidence from a growing up city in eastern Himalayan foothills

Abstract

The unprecedented and unplanned urban growth in Indian cities is a great threat to the sustainable urban development and urban resilience. Therefore, the present study emphasized in identifying rapid urban growth, future resilience, and human adaptability in Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC) area. For this purpose, the land use land cover (LULC) map has been prepared for 2001, 2011 and 2021 and then cellular automata-Markov chain (CA-MC) with four suitable fuzzy factors have been incorporated to simulate the prediction of built-up areas in 2031. Finally, future human adaptation susceptibility zone map has been prepared using the prediction-adaptation-resilience (PAR) approach. The built-up area has been increased by 10.25 km2 in last 20 years while other natural landscape has been reduced by the encroachment of urban pavement surface towards peripheral regions. The ward wise human adaptability zone indicates that total 14 municipal wards will be in most vulnerable situation within 2031. Consequently, water logging, sewage issues, congestions, environmental issues, solid waste issues will be the most challenging issue. So, the outcome of this study may be useful for the policy makers to take proper planning for built-up area development and give attention to increase the green space in the down town region.