Urban Growth Monitoring using Remote Sensing and Geo-Informatics: Case Study of Gandhinagar, Gujarat State (India)

Abstract

The Gandhinagar town has undergone unprecedented urban growth after assuming the status of a capital of Gujarat state, India in 1971. The Gandhinagar city lies on the western bank of river Sabarmati and city is also known as the “Tree capital of India” because of greenery with 54% green cover. The urban sprawl in Gandhinagar town was analyzed using multi-temporal Landsat TM data from 1981 to 2015. Spectral indices namely Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI) and Built-up Index (BUI) were generated from the Landsat TM bands covering visible Red (R), Near Infrared (NIR) and Short Wave Infrared (SWIR) wavelength regions. Spectral variations in built-up, open spaces, urban vegetation and water areas were studied by generating two-dimensional spectral plots of NDBI and BUI. The spectral response of built up areas like Urban-dense and urban-sparse classes are quite distinct from other cover types like open spaces, urban vegetation and water. The results indicate that the normalized difference built-up index (NDBI) and Built-up Index (BUI) were very useful for mapping urban built-up areas in Gandhinagar town using Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data. The built-up area in Gandhinagar increased from 1100.1 ha during Jan 1989 to 1907.3 ha during Jan 2015 which indicates about 73 per cent increase in the built-up area during the period of 26 years. The urban vegetation which includes parks and gardens in the city has also shown increasing trend during the period of 1989 to 2015. However, the area under open spaces has decreased as the development of built-up area has increased as per development plan of the Gandhinagar town.