Quantification of land transformation using multi temporal satellite data and GIS techniques

In India, the percentage of people living in cities and urban area has increased almost more than two and fold to 37.8%, in 2011 from 14% at the time of independence. This is expected to accelerate even further and by 2021 over 47% of people will be in urban areas. Due to ever increasing population the land resources, hydrological and biological cycle in urban- rural fringe is taking place at alarming pace in main urban centers. The uncontrolled, haphazard low density human settlement are leading to urban growth, which can presently characterized by haphazard patchwork of development lead to improper development in any city usually happens due to landuse/landcover conversion and transformation in which the growth rate of urbanized land significantly exceed the rates of population growth over specific time period. Geo-spatial technology coupled with Geographical Information System (GIS), is a vital tool to monitor and assess the present and past status of urban spatial growth and land conversion in urban periphery using multi date satellite data. The present paper is an attempt to monitor and analyze the urban spatial growth and land transformation of Saharanpur city using Survey of India topographical map surveyed in 1971 and satellite imageries at different time period from 2006 to 2014 and future projections of population, land transformation and per capita land consumption and absorption rate is estimated for 2021. The digital database generated for urban spatial growth and land transformation of Saharanpur city, Uttar Pradesh using temporal data in GIS domain would be very useful for urban planners/decision makers for proper land use planning and management of urban areas.