Evaluating Urban Landscape Dynamics over Srinagar City and Its Environs

Abstract

Rapid, unplanned and uncontrolled urbanization causes disorganized growth. The patterns of urban development are changing natural landscapes and their dynamics. This has necessitated understanding of spatial patterns of urbanization and prompted research. Urbanization being a dynamic phenomenon has been facing ambiguities regarding methods to study its dynamism. It has made operational, a wide-variety of spatial metrics methods utilizing multiple dates of remotely sensed data. The present work carries out the quantitative and qualitative analysis of urban growth of Srinagar by using Urban Landscape Analysis Tool (ULAT). Urbanized Area (UA), Urban Footprint (UF) and New Development (ND) maps are generated to quantify the degree of urbanization based on spatial density of built-up area. Comparative analysis of these maps in relation to the built-up spread pattern indicates that mostly the environs of the Srinagar city which includes mostly agricultural, vacant and marshy areas prominently in northern, western and southern areas contribute to the development of the city.