Monitoring spatio-temporal dynamics of urban and peri-urban landscape using remote sensing and GIS – A case study from Central India

Abstract

In the study, an attempt has been made to map and monitor spatio-temporal dynamics of urban and peri-urban landscape of Nagpur city, Maharashtra, India using urban plan maps (1936), topographical sheets (1976), temporal Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper data for the years 1991 and 2010. Object Based Image Analysis (OBIA) technique has been followed to classify the temporal remote sensing data using eCognition software (Ver 9.8) in conjunction with topographic sheets in Geographic Information System (GIS). The analysis shows that urban area has increased from 2272 ha in 1936 to 17344 ha in 2010, this could be attributed to natural increase in urban population and inward migration from villages to city for better education, employment, recreation and living standards. During the urbanization process, about 2806 ha of land has been converted predominantly from double cropped area and degraded scrublands to housing or industrial needs. Interestingly area under water bodies slightly increased from 0.9 to 1.1 per cent of total geographical area (TGA) during the same period. The analysis of urban sprawl shows that eastern, southern and southwestern part of Nagpur city witnessed significant growth of urban sprawl. The generated spatio-temporal information on urban sprawl could be effectively used to monitor the land use/land cover changes and maintain sustainable urban environment of the Nagpur city. The study demonstrates the potential of temporal satellite data and GIS techniques in analysis of spatio-temporal dynamics of urban and peri-urban landscape for management of land resources on sustainable basis.