Urban sprawl and its impact on landuse/land cover dynamics of Dehradun City, India

The world has seen the development and growth of urban areas at a faster pace. The rapid urban growth and development have resulted in the increase in the share of India’s urban population from 79 million in 1961 that was about 17.92 percent of India’s total population to 388 million in 2011 that is 31.30 percent of India’s total population. This fast rate of increase in urban population is mainly due to large scale migration of people from rural and smaller towns to bigger cities in search of better employment opportunities and better quality of life. Urban sprawl has resulted in loss of productive agricultural lands, open green spaces and loss of surface water bodies. Hence, there is a dire need to study, understand and quantify the urban sprawl. In this study, an attempt has been made to monitor land use/land cover of part of Dehradun city over two periods of time i.e., from 2004 to 2014 for change detection analysis and to assess urban sprawl using IRS P-6 data and topographic sheets, in GIS environment for better decision making and sustainable urban growth.