Overview | Urban Sprawl | Fringe Area Development | Urban Agglomeration | Emerging Technologies | Relevant Links Application of Remote Sensing and GIS for Detecting Land Use Changes: A Case Study of VadodaraDr. Bindu Bhatt Sr. Lecturer bindoobhatt@rediffmail.com bindoobhatt@gmail.com Mr. Amit.Kumar Gupta Junior Research Fellow Mr. Gunin Gogoi Junior Research Fellow Department of Geography, Faculty of Science The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara ABSTRACT Rapid urban development and increasing land use changes due to population and economic growth in selected landscapes is being witnessed of late in India and other developing countries The cities are expanding in all directions resulting in large-scale urban sprawl and changes in urban land use. The spatial pattern of such changes is clearly noticed on the urban fringes or city peripheral rural areas, than in the city centre. In fact, this is reflected in changing urban land use patterns. There is an urgent need to accurately describe land use changes for planning and sustainable management. In the recent times, Remote Sensing and GIS is gaining importance as vital tool in the analysis and integration of spatio-temporal data. The present study highlights a coordinated significance of Remote Sensing and GIS techniques in detecting land use changes that have been experienced in last thirty years in Vadodra and its surrounding areas. Introduction Urban sprawl may be defined as the scattering of new development on isolated tracts, separated from other areas by vacant land (Ottensmann, 1977). It is also often described as leapfrog development (Gordon and Richardson, 1977) as observed in all the major cities across the world. It is expected that by the years 2001 India will loose about 10 Million Hectares of prime agricultural land in the form of urban sprawls. The cities are growing in all directions resulting into changes in urban land use, reflected on the border or peripheral rural areas as compared to that of the city centre. In the midst of urban and industrial expansion, there is increasing pressure on important resources predominantly in the metropolitan cities. Urban spread out has been blamed for disorganized use of land resources and energy and large scale intrusion onto the agricultural lands. As the cities enlarge, agricultural land and habitats like forest etc. are transformed into land for housing, roads, industry etc. The result is increase in the built up area and related changes in the urban land use patterns, causing loss of productive agricultural lands, forest cover, other forms of greenery, loss in surface water bodies, depletion in ground water aquifers and increasing levels of air and water pollution; causing environmental problems. Thus the problem of expanding of city centers is complex and complicated Land use change is the end result of numerous interacting factors arising from different levels of associations of human-environment systems, which differs in time and space. Driving forces can be slow with long turnover times, which decide the boundaries of sustainability. Changes are generally driven by a combination of factors that work progressively and factors that happen irregularly. Thus it is necessary to measure and monitor land use changes over space and time for sustainability. The accessibility of high resolution data has been helpful for mapping spatial features, providing dependable, suitable, and precise data. GIS provides diverse methods to create spatial planning scenario for decision making.  Figure.1 The Study Area The study area Vadodara is located in the most developed region of the state of Gujarat, popularly known as “Golden Corridor”. Situated in the Central Gujarat, it extends between 21° and 23° north latitudes and 73° and 74° 10? east longitude over and area of 714 sq.kmThe region has undergone dramatic changes in the land use pattern due to very rapid industrialization. The capital of former princely state with slow pace of life and ordinary scale development, is now subjected to rapid industrialization and urbanization (Fig.1) After the formation of Gujarat state in 1960; the city experienced real boom in industrialization. Massive multi core national projects like Koyali refinery, Indian Petro Chemicals Ltd., Gujarat State Fertilizer Plant were set up. During 1980’s the city has seen the development of specified industrial estates like Makarpura, Sardar Estate & Nandesri developed by Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation with in the immediate urban area and industrial area of Savli, Vaghodia and Por on the outskirts of the present Urban limits of Vadodara. Expanding private sector also provided additional jobs to thousands of white and blue collared workers. This has helped in building a wide and highly diversified modern industrial base. The post libralisation period have seen spurt in the growth and establishment of global giants around the Vadodara Urban area like General Motors (Halol), Larson & Tubro (Nandesri), GE Plastic (Bajwa) etc. The physical growth of city is induced by development of residential and industrial activity around the city from time to time. Industrial and commercial activities have developed along the major arterial roads running North-South and East-West of Vadodara city. Initially, the development took place along the four axis of Mandvi, later spread outwards West and North Western direction. Consequently, there was increase in the administrative limits from time to time. In 1921, the city municipal area was 22.68 Sq.Km. By 1964 the area increased to 72.44 Sq.Km, which increase to 97.22 sq.km. in 1973 to 108.22 sq.km in 1975 till 1996.. The city is at present subdivided into 10 administrative wards With the establishment Vadodara Urban Development Authority (VUDA) on 1st February, 1978, city has its own developmental agency. The VUDA Covers 714 Sq.Kms area including Baroda Municipal Corporation and area of Vadodara, Padra, Vaghodia Taluka covering 104 villages.
Table 1 Area of VUDA and VMC Methodology and Data Set Application of Remote Sensing technology have been identified and used as an important tool to monitor land use and surface changes. Satellite remote sensing collects multi-spectral, multi-resolution, multi-temporal data providing valuable information for understanding and monitoring the process of urban land cover changes. As it is in the digital format, it can be brought into GIS , to provide a suitable platform for data analysis, update and retrieval. Land use can be captured both in terms of geographic location and absolute area. The growth profile obtained helps in formulation of development policies. (Patkar.V.N & Sampathkumar. D) In the present study, LAND SAT- 5 TM (1990) & LANDSAT-7 ETM +(2001) data of one time period i.e. for the month of November is used for detecting the characteristics of land use change. ERDAS imagine 8.7 digital image processing soft ware is used for supervised classification. Land use was categorized into 8 types based on signature of the images. Further, ARC info 8.3 is used to prepare thematic maps and data base (.Fig.2)
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