Role of Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques in Urban Planning and Utilities–A Case Study of Visakhapatnam City, Andhra Pradesh, India

Prof. S. Sachi Devi Professor
Dept. of Geography, Andhra University,
India
Email: ssachidevi@gmail.com



The ever-growing urban population is exerting pressure on natural resources like land and water throughout the globe, especially in the Asian region. In addition, lack of proper housing, sanitation, healthcare, transportation etc in the urban areas further complicating the issues of city planning and utilities and the same has severe implications on the quality of urban life. In India, the number of metropolitan cities was grown from 23 to 35 corresponding periods of 1991 and 2001. The remote sensing & GIS based approach is the appropriate method to tackle such problems in time as well as spatial context. In order to analyze the various problems in the urban centres, the authors have chosen Visakhapatnam city as a case study. Visakhapatnam is a major port city and second largest city in Andhra Pradesh, located in the middle of East Coast of India. In this paper, the authors analyzed the Visakhapatnam city growth in the temporal and spatial context using remote sensing and GIS techniques. Toposheets covering Visakhapatnam (65O/5,6,9,10) published by Survey of India (1975 and 1995), Visakhapatnam District Map published by NATMO (year) and IRS Satellite Imagery consisting IRS-1D, LISS-III and PAN data (years) were used as primary data. Besides, collateral information from Census, Published reports and Media information, Internet was also included. The Land use/ cover mapping for the Visakhapatnam urban area has been carried out for the period 1975-2005.Information such as transportation, financial institutions, hospitals, educational institutions, power supply, water supply, Industries etc is the basic support systems of any urban environment. These facilities were mapped ward-wise and analysed in GIS environment in order to ascertain the population and utilization of various resources. Finally, the utility of remote sensing, GPS and GIS techniques envisaged in such studies.