INTRODUCTION

Land use Land cover (LULC) dynamicsis a major concern, as the abrupt changes in these dynamics has a negative impact on ecology, climate, regional hydrology, and also people’s livelihood in the region. LULC dynamics are specific to a region and vary from region to region (Ramachandra et al., 2012).Land Cover refers to the observed physical cover on the earth’s surface. Land cover essentially distinguishes the region under vegetation with that of non-vegetation (Lillesand and keifer, 2005). Land use refers to use of the land surface through modifications by humans and natural phenomena (Lillesand and keifer, 2005). Land use can be classified into various classes such as waterbodies, built up, forests, agriculture, open lands, sand, soil, etc. Land use modifications alter the structure of the landscape and hence the functional ability of the landscape (Ramachandra, et al., 2012). The modification includes conversion of forest lands, scrublands to agricultural fields, cultivation lands to builtup, construction of storage structures for water bodies leading to submergence of land features that may vary from small scale to large scale.
Land use and land cover patterns and their changes over time for the region are quantified with the spatial data acquired through space borne sensors. Remote sensing data with synoptic repetitive coverage aids in understanding the landscape dynamics. The spatial data are analysed using Geographic Information System (GIS).  Temporal remote Sensing data with GIS platforms have been used to acquire and comprehend the changes in land use, land cover and the urban sprawl dynamics of urbanizing landscape Belgaum city during 1989 and 2012. Satellite remote sensing technology has the abilityto provide consistent measurements of landscape condition, allowing detection of abrupt or slow trend in changes over time. Long-term change detection resultsprovide insight into the stressors and drivers of change, potentially allowing for management strategies targeted toward cause rather than simply the symptoms of the cause (Kennedy et al., 2009).

Analyzing the spatio-temporal characteristics of landscape dynamics are essential for understanding and assessing ecological consequence of urbanization. Urbanization is taking place all over the world, but most commonly now in cities/towns of developing nations. In countries like India, urbanization is due to the increase in population in a region due to industrialization. Large scale land use land cover changes with industrialization prominently took place in outskirts during post 2000. Spurt in IT and BT sectors lead to the large scale migration from different parts of the country and also from other parts of the globe for the employment opportunities in the industry. To meet the residential requirements, dispersed growth or sprawl has taken place in per-urban areas. Sprawl phenomenon drives drastic changes in land use patterns leading to haphazard growth affecting local ecology and the environment. Sprawl occurs either in radial direction around the city centre or in linear direction along the highways, ring roads, etc. The built-up is the parameter used for quantifying urban sprawl. The study on urban sprawl is attempted in the developed countries and recently in developing countries such as China (Yeh and Li, 2001) and India (Ramachandra et al., 2012, Sudhira et al., 2003, Sudhira et al., 2004). In India alone currently 25% of the population (Census of India, 2001) lives in the urban centers and it is projected that in the next fifteen years about 33% would be living in the urban centers (Sudhira et al 2004). In order to understand the dynamics, urbanization quantification and assessment of the extent of sprawl is necessary. Shannon’s entropyhelps to measure the degree of spatial concentration or dispersion among ‘n’ zones (Yeh and Li, 2001; Sudhira et al., 2003; Sudhira et al 2004; Ramachandra et al., 2012).  Objective of the current study is to analyze the land use land coverdynamics of urbanizing landscape apart from assessing the underlying effects of urbanisation such as urban sprawl through Shannon’s entropy.