Urban Sprawl Mapping and Land Use Change Detection Using Remote Sensing and GIS

Urban growth identification, quantification, and the knowledge of rate and trends of growth helps in determining the changes associated with land use and land cover properties and in regional planning with better infrastructure in environmentally sound way. Spatial and temporal technologies such as Remote Sensing, Geographic Information System (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) are very helpful in such type of studies. This paper focuses on urban growth pattern analyses being carried out for urban sprawl in Varanasi city. Various GIS layers such as built-up area; agricultural land; vegetation/forest land; water bodies/wet land; brick kiln; rivers; DLW (industrial area); BHU (educational area), road network, city boundary etc. were generated using data such as the Survey of India toposheet and Remote sensing imagery. Spatial changes in built-up area and the pattern of sprawl were studied using GIS. This study revealed that in Varanasi there is remarkable decrease in agricultural areas and tremendous growth in Built-ups. About 37.57% of agricultural land is transformed to other land use features. Rate of change agricultural land to other land use is observed 210.80ha/yr. There is no brick kiln in city area during the 2010 while in 1976; it covered the total area of 143.14ha. Built-ups increased by 7325.72ha, with change rate of 215.46 ha/yr. Study showed decreased in water bodies by 15.13 ha. There is no change in the area of BHU, DLW, River Ganga and Varuna.