1. Visualisation of urban dynamics in Bangalore city.
2. Visualization of urban dynamics in the Bangalore urban district.
3. Ward-wise number of trees and spatial distribution of trees.
4. Spatial distribution of lakes
5. Visualization of ecologically sensitive regions in Bangalore urban district.

Bangalore Urban information System (BUiS) is designed by taking advantage of the recent advances in information and open source web technologies through the integration of spatial and the attribute information (urbanisation trend, lakes, trees, environmental, administrative, demographic, socio-economic, etc.)

Web-based spatial decision support system (WSDSS) is designed by integrating free and open source software (GeoServer, PostgreSQL, PostGIS, Leaflet) and integration of spatial information of Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards to carry out a multiple criteria analysis. Features such as Web Map Service (WMS), and Web Feature Service (WFS) would help to effectively disseminate ecological, socio-economic, and environmental information.

Urbanisation refers to the growth of towns and cities due to a large proportion of the population living in urban areas and their suburbs at the expense of the rural regions. People migrate to urban areas hoping for a better living, considering relatively better infrastructural facilities (education, recreation, health centres, banking, transport, and communication) and higher per capita income. Unplanned urbanisation leads to large-scale land use changes affecting the sustenance of local natural resources. Rapid unplanned urbanisation in most cities in India has led to serious problems in urban areas due to higher pollution (air, water, land, noise), inequitable distribution of natural resources, traffic congestion, the spread of slums, unemployment, increased reliance on fossil fuels, and uncontrolled outgrowth or sprawl in the periphery.

Urbanisation is one of the demographic issues being investigated in the 21st century. Understanding spatial patterns of changes and prior visualization of likely growth is crucial for sustainable management of natural resources and evolving strategies to mitigate climate changes. This would help city planners mitigate the problems associated with the increased urban area and population and ultimately build sustainable cities.

Bangalore is experiencing unprecedented rapid urbanisation and sprawl in recent times due to unrealistic concentrated developmental activities with impetus on industrialisation for the economic development of the region. This has led to large-scale land cover changes with serious environmental degradation, posing serious challenges to the decision makers in the city planning and management process involving a plethora of serious challenges such as climate change, enhanced emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), lack of appropriate infrastructure, traffic congestion, and lack of basic amenities (electricity, water, and sanitation) in many localities, etc.

Urbanisation and loss of natural resources (wetlands and green spaces): Urbanisation during 1973 to 2023 (1055% concretization or increase of paved surface) has a telling influence on the natural resources, such as a decline in green spaces (88% decline in vegetation), wetlands (79% decline), higher air pollutants and a sharp decline in the groundwater table. Figure 1 depicts the unrealistic urban growth during the last two decades. Quantifying the number of trees in the region using remote sensing data with field census reveals that only 1.5 million trees support Bangalore's population of 9.5 million, indicating one tree for every seven persons in the city. This is insufficient even to sequester respiratory carbon (540-900 g per person per day).

The city landscape was dotted with greeneries to an extent of 466 sq. km (68.2%), and built-up areas were about 54 sq. km (7.97%). There has been a steep increase in built-up areas (640 sq.km 86.6%) and loss of green cover due to rapid urbanisation. Figure 1 depicts the unrealistic urban growth during the last five decades, and category-wise land use transitions are listed in Table 1.

Figure 1: Land use changes in Bangalore landscape during the past 50 years

Table 1: Land use transitions from 1973 to 2020

• loss of natural resources (wetlands and green spaces);
• loss of interconnectivity among lakes;
• increased greenhouse gas footprint;
• heat islands and increase of vector-borne diseases;
• frequent flooding;
• decline in groundwater table;
• loss of water recharge capability; 
• oxygen deficiency and acute water scarcity;
• mismanagement of solid and liquid wastes;
• traffic bottlenecks and higher emissions from the transportation sector

Environmentally sound urban centres with essential basic amenities and advanced infrastructures (such as sensors, electronic devices, and networks) would stimulate sustainable economic growth and improvements in citizen services. The deployment of information and communication technology infrastructures for effective governance supports social and urban growth through an improved economy and active participation of citizens. Indian cities while exhibiting technological innovations and connectedness, should also focus on increased living comfort through adequate infrastructure, green spaces, and essential basic amenities for every citizen.

Unplanned cities not only contribute to global climate change by emitting the majority of anthropogenic greenhouse gases but also are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and extreme weather. This emphaises the need to improve urban sustainability through innovations while addressing technical, ecological, economic, behavioral, and political challenges to create low-carbon, resilient, and livable cities.

Understanding spatial patterns of changes in the land and prior visualization of growth are imperative for planning sustainable management of natural resources and mitigation of changes in climate. This would help city planners when planning how to mitigate the problems associated with the increased urban area and population, and, ultimately, build sustainable cities. In this regard, the spatial decision support system – BuiS aids in decision making with the visualisation at disaggregated levels of (i) urban dynamics (1973-2023), (ii) lakes – spatial distribution with attribute information, (iii) trees – ward wise distribution, (iv) administrative, (v) demography – population trends, (vi) environmental -sewage generated (ward wise), rainfall (monthly average), digital elevation model, (vii) Bangalore urban district  (landscape dynamics from 1973 to 2023, administrative (boundary, taluk), environmental (ecologically sensitive regions) for prudent management of natural resources.