9.         CONCLUSION AND SCOPE FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

The study investigated the urban sprawl phenomenon occurring along the Bangalore - Mysore highway and found that there has been an overall increase in the built-up area by 194%, the Bangalore North - South taluks having the highest percentage (559%) increase and Srirangapatna - Mysore with the lowest percentage (128%) change in built-up area. Further it was also found the change in built-up was high as the distance from Bangalore decreased. With the Shannon's entropy analysis, the study could identify where the sprawl was taking place and its degree as well. The Bangalore North - South taluks showed higher value entropy indicating sprawl, while the Mandya - Maddur taluks showed lower entropy value indicating compactness or less dispersion. Further, it is seen that Bangalore city was sprawling in radial direction (from the city centre) as well as linearly along the major roads.

The investigation along the Tiruchirapalli – Tanjavore – Kumbakonam – Thiruvarur region revealed that the change in built-up area for nearly three decades was 93.25 %. Further it was found that there was highly dispersed growth in the region with the development mostly taking place along the highways apart from the city’s periphery and the riverbank.

The study carried out along the Mangalore - Udupi highway to identify and quantify the sprawl found that the percentage change in built-up over the period of nearly thirty years was 145.68 %. By 2050, the built-up area in the region would rise to 127.7 sq. km, which would be nearly 106 % growth in the change in built-up area to the current sprawl of 61.7703 sq. km over the region. 

The study demonstrates GIS and remote sensing coupled with statistical analyses, such as arriving at Shannon's entropy help immensely in spatial and temporal analyses for studying the sprawl and for delineating the regions with higher sprawl.  Further the thrust being on the modeling studies, the study successfully defines the sprawl phenomenon with respect to mathematical relationships. From these the possibilities of sprawl in terms of percentage built-up were estimated for 2051 and 2101. The future scope of this work would look into generating the images of further sprawl under different scenarios to understand any threat to natural resources and ecosystem. The study demonstrates that the application of GIS and remote sensing coupled with statistical analyses, such as arriving at Shannon's entropy helps in studying the sprawl and identifying regions having potential for subsequent sprawl.

With the development and infrastructure initiatives mostly around the urban centres, the impacts of urban sprawl would be on the natural resources and ecology. The wisdom lies in how effectively we plan the urban growth without hampering the natural resources and disturbing the rural set-up. Planning should also focus on a dispersed economic structure and aim at creation of balanced ecological, social, and economic system.