Land use and land cover change detection of pune urban expansion by using GIS and RS technology

Dr. Tipe Harish Bhanudas* Mr. Chetan Laxman Hulsure**

The history of urban growth and urbanisation reveals that urban areas belong to the most dynamic land cover types on earth. The trend of urban growth is usually towards the urban-rural fringe where there are less built areas, irrigation and other water management systems. Regardless of the regional economic importance, urban growth, particularly the expansion of residential and commercial land use towards the periphery of urban areas, has an impact on the ecosystem (Yuan et al. 2005). It is evident that such trend of urban growth has an impact on natural resources and on land cover dynamics at large.

Land use and land cover change is a major issue in global environment change, and is especially significant in rapidly developing regions in the world. With its economic development, population growth, and urbanization, pune, a major municipal corporation in Maharashtra has experienced a dramatic land use and land cover change over the past 15 years. Fast land use and land cover change have resulted in degradation of its ecosystems and affected adversely the environment. It is urgently needed to monitor its land use and land cover changes and to analyses the consequences of these changes in order to provide information for policymakers to support sustainable development. This paper is assessed the change in land use and land cover in pune municipal corporation in Maharashtra. The study made land use and land cover of the study area for 1992 and 2006. The result of change detection shows that the cultivated land area decreased between 1992 and 2006 by 7.683% and the built-up area increased between 1992 and 2006 by 112.914%. Also, the waste land area has been decreased from 589.238 sq. km to 390.942 sq. km.

Key words: Change detection, Land use, land cover, GIS, Remote Sensing.

* Head, Department of Geography, Vasundhara Kala Mahavidyalaya, Jule Solapur, Maharashtra.

** Research Student