Quantification of Land Transformation Using Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques

Urbanization is an inevitable part of economic development. Urbanization results in to changes in the landscape, specifically the proliferation of concrete and impervious surfaces, and the displacement of agriculture and forestland. Understanding these interactions between human activities and their consequences in landscape, is especially important in areas of the world that are experiencing rapid change, where the cumulative impacts of development may be realized too late to trigger mitigation measures. The present study of land transformation in Srinagar city aims to demonstrate the utility of integrating existing maps with the satellite data and related geographic information to dynamically map urban land transformation characteristics. This study provides a visual portrayal of growth and trends of transformation and conveys how the progress of modern urbanization results in changes to the landscape. The analysis revealed that there has been a large scale land use/land cover change and transformations in Srinagar city during the study period of 30 years (1981-2011). Such change was validated by carrying out the estimation of Land Consumption Rate and Land Absorption Coefficient. Moreover, the study also projects the likely changes that might occur till the year 2021. The projections for change by the year suggest that there will be further expansion of the city on the fertile agricultural fields in its fringe area as of 1981-2011 study period. This research work could present the diagnostic approach to the cause and effect relationship in in spatio temporal framework of urban geography.