Abstract

Urbanisation process is a significant economic and social phenomena that occurs at an unmatched rate and scale worldwide. Rapid urbanisation and urban sprawl have been seeking much attention throughout the globe. Criticism faced by majority of the Tier-I cities in India is due to lack of proper urban planning which indirectly leads to improper land use, severe effects on natural biodiversity, large scale encroachment on wetlands leading to urban floods. This calls for an immediate action that needs to be taken by the local as well as regional governance to ensure swiftly changing landuse patterns and their ill effects. According to the researchers, the only way by which large areas can be monitored and mapped is with the aid of remote sensing and GIS tools. This communication delivers an integrated model involving metrics to understand the status of land use and land cover in the region. The focus mainly lies on understanding and modelling urbanisation pattern for the fastest growing metropolitan city on the Deccan Plateau of south eastern India. Land cover analysis for Hyderabad region reveals a drastic decrease in vegetation from 95.64% (1989), 93.28% (1999), 82.67% (2009) to 61.15% (2014). Land use analysis indicated significant urban growth of 1.75% in 1989 to 22.19% in 2014. Spatial metrics and density gradient analysis were employed to observe finer details of urbanisation pattern. This research article gives a complete visualization and urban growth statistic for Hyderabad region, helpful for government agencies and decision makers for proper urban planning and implementation of strategies with very minimal impact on the environment.
Keywords: Urbanisation, Cellular automation, Markov chain,Spatial metrics, Urban modelling