A study on the urban growth and dynamics over 16 major cities of India

Urban agglomerations across the world have witnessed haphazard and unprecedented growth in the recent past, giving rise to urban sprawling. This study analyses the spatio-temporal growth dynamics of 16 major Indian cities (population above one million) using remote sensing approaches. Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) thematic datasets are considered for the years 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2021. The variability of the five LULC classes, viz., urban built-up, vegetation, water body, agriculture, and barren land, implied that urban expansion mostly took place at the cost of barren lands. The urbanised landscape mainly portrayed dispersive outward growth since the beginning of the 21st century, with significant compaction (infill urban growth) near the urban core in recent years. The results derived through Shannon’s Entropy, spatial metrics, and urban density gradient analysis (in eight directions) indicated the same. Population density variation with respect to the horizontal urban growth and dynamics in each considered direction, further supported the concept of overcrowded city centres and sprawled outskirts. Besides population density, other factors that could be associated with urbanisation include the local environment, meteorology, and some geophysical characteristics.