ABSTRACT

Globalization and subsequent opening up of Indian markets has given impetus to the urbanization process in most urban pockets in India leading to large scale irreversible land cover changes. Tier II cities in Karnataka with spurt in urban activities are trying to be infrastructural competitive. However this approach has marginalized the planned interventions through the understanding and visualisation of the trends of future growth. In the absence of proper planning and visualization of growth trends, dispersed growth with lack of basic amenities is unabated in most of the metropolis of India. This communication analyses the growth patterns in one of the prominent tier II city in Karnataka–Bellary. The spatio–temporal analysis has been done for the past four decades considering buffer to account for the sprawl at outskirts. Land use and Land cover analysis with Shannon’s entropy and Landscape metrics aided in visualizing the urban growth with the emerging spatial patterns. Land use analysis indicate the growth of urban areas in the city and Shannon’s entropy indicates of sprawl and the need for appropriate strategies to manage natural resources  while providing basic amenities . Landscape metrics highlight of aggregated growth at the centre with the tendency to form single clumped urban patch, whereas the city outskirts and the buffer region with fragmented landscapes reveal of dispersed growth. This analyses help city planners in understanding the urban growth and for institutionalizing the future developments.

Keywords: Urbanisation, sprawl, Bellary city, landscape metrics, entropy.