URBAN LANDSCAPE DYNAMICS FOR QUANTIFYING THE CHANGING PATTERN OF URBANISATION IN DELHI

Ongoing rapid pace of population growth and accelerating urbanisation have transformed urban and rural landscapes in the National Capital Region of India. To understand the changing ecology of Indian urban systems, it is essential to quantify the spatial and temporal patterns of urbanisation with the way it is transforming the characteristics of sub-urban and rural areas. The current paper uses Urban Landscape Analysis Tool (ULAT) to compute the changing patterns of urban sprawl in Delhi, India. Classified images having three classes namely Urban, Water and Others are utilised to extract the degree of urbanisation, which in turn reclassified into urban sub-classes called built-up, suburban built-up, rural built-up, open land and water. Area corresponds to each urban sub-class when plotted temporally provides significant information about the nature and type of urban sprawl. This paper also helps to identify the name of different suburban and rural areas changed and became the part of urban ecosystem in last two decades in Delhi.