ABSTRACT

Rapid urbanization coupled with burgeoning population, economic disparity and prevalence of infectious disease necessitate mitigation strategies in the context of environmental challenges and the sustainability of healthy natural resources. During the past decade, Tier II cities in Karnataka have been witnessing dramatic changes in land cover Unplanned urbanization and consequent impacts on natural resources including basic amenities has necessitated the investigation and understanding of mechanisms and dynamics of land use and land-use change on a range of spatial scales and evaluate the environmental consequences of these changes at the landscape scale. This communication aims to quantify and analyze the spatial–temporal pattern of urbanization process of a tier II city – Gulbarga, Karnataka State, India using Remote Sensing (RS) data and spatial metrics. The results show that during the past decade (2000 - 2010), Gulbarga has experienced spatial expansion of urban area. The urban land use has increased from 1% to 22% in past 4 decades. Temporal remote sensing data with spatial metrics helped in understanding spatial patterns of urban sprawl. Spatial metrics indicate a clumped and aggregated growth at the city and sprawl at the outskirts. Computation of Shannon’s entropy, spatial metrics with the gradient approach helped in bridging the knowledge gap between present and past land use. This knowledge helps the administrators and planners to visualize the urban growth to provide basic amenities.

Keywords: Urbanisation, sprawl, Tier II cities, Remote sensing data, Geospatial analysis