Urban expansion influences on land use and land cover changes in Kolkata metropolitan region: a geo-spatial study

Abstract

The relentless march of urban expansion has ushered in profound and transformative alterations in land-use changes and recording huge environmental decline in the domain of metropolitan areas. This current study, as a beacon of exploration, strives to unfurl the intricate nature of urban expansion and spatio-temporal mosaic of land use dynamics evolution in Kolkata Metropolitan Region. The population data was gleaned from Census of India and annals of Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority documents. Similarly, temporal satellite images have been used for this study, which were downloaded from the Landsat Archive Level 1 data products of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Explorer. Multi-temporal satellite images were analysed with the aid of Geographical Information Systems and the insightful inspection of Remote Sensing spatial data analysis methods. The maximum likelihood supervised classification methods were used for categorization of specific land cover and land use pattern. The analysis in the study identified the changes in the land-use patten and the land-cover by deploying post-classification change detection and GIS-based spatial analysis methods. After scrutinising the study outcomes, it was found that built-up areas had been drastically increased. The tapestry of fallow land, agricultural land, open space, natural vegetation cover, and wetlands have been sacrificed at the expense of the rapid growth of the built-up area. The study result shows the land use and land cover change

in 1991, the built-up area was 18.9%, and in 2021 it reached 48.5%. This study manifested that the swift surge in the built-up area and in the tendrils of urban expansion took place from 1991 to 2021. Focus Group Discussions complemented with in-depth interview results threw light on the direct correlation between urban expansion and unequivocal shifts in the pattern of land use in the metropolitan region. Kolkata Metropolitan Region's planning system should work on comprehensive framework that would be in harmony with the exacerbated vulnerability of land to environmental deterioration stemming from urban sprawl. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2024.