Changing Space of Pune – A GIS perspective

Dr (Mrs) Sulochana Shekhar
Lecturer
National Defence Academy,
Email: sulogis@yahoo.com


Today for the first time in the history of mankind, urban dwellers outnumber rural residents. The world is continuing on an inevitable trajectory of urbanisation. Further more, in the course of the present century, the level of urbanisation is likely to increase. The general move towards dispersal and location of growth on the peripheries or fringes of cities is becoming a common phenomenon. The expanding surface that cities occupy and the resources required to supply their needs absorb or transform, directly or indirectly, ever-larger extensions of forests and arable land. The growth and development of these cities are likely to continue and therefore there will be a need for proper planning and managing or improving the existing infrastructure facilities. In this juncture, the state of the art technology Geoinformatics can play an imperative role. It proved their efficiency time and again in various fields and predominantly in the urban planning. To demonstrate the diverse use and the capabilities of GIS to the local authorities, here an attempt has been made to study the changing space of Pune, a rapidly metamorphosing city of India. Pune, which has been hailed as “Happening City”, has not only survived but it has also prospered continuously during the last 400 years. It has been ranked amongst top eight cities in India on the retail front. The inflow of IT and other multi national companies have boosted its growth and brought the changes in residential, and commercial space of Pune. In turn the green space, hill slopes and arable land are showing shrinking trend. The study has been carried out with RS data, GIS and GPS. It has been found that, Geoinformatics provides for the monitoring and surveillance of compliance with planning regulations and it serves as an early warning system with regard to friction and sources of shortfalls in the process of urban planning and sustainable management. Further to meet the people’s requirement and imbibe local wisdom in the action plans, the spatial information base is pre requisite. The spatial database, offers tremendous advantage in carrying out land-use planning and management activities. Technological advances are bound to increase the scope for further applications. Requisite hardware, software, trained manpower and organisational support are however necessary for deriving the maximum benefit from these technologies in the field of regional and urban planning.