Conclusion
Urbanisation and the consequent loss of lakes has led to decrease in catchment yield, water storage capacity, wetland area, number of migratory birds, flora and fauna diversity and ground water table. As land is converted, it loses its ability to absorb rainfall. The relationship between LST and NDVI investigated through the Pearson’s correlation coefficient at a pixel level and the significance tested through one-tail Student’s t-test, confirms the relationship for all LC types. Also, increased urbanisation has resulted in higher population densities in certain wards, which incidentally have higher LST due to high level of anthropogenic activities. The growth poles are towards N, NE, S and SE of the city indicating the intense urbanization process due to growth agents like setting up of IT corridors, industrial units, etc. Newly builtup areas in these regions consisted of maximum number of small-scale industries, IT companies, multistoried building and private houses that came up in the last one decade. The growth in northern direction can be attributed to the new International Airport, encouraging other commercial and residential hubs. The southern part of the city is experiencing new residential and commercial layouts and the north-western part of the city outgrowth corresponds to the Peenya industrial belt along with the Bangalore-Pune National Highway 4.
Acknowledgement
We thank the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, Indian Institute of Science and the Ministry of Science and Technology, DST, Government of India for the sustained financial and infrastructure support to energy and wetlands research. |