The Changing Urban Landscape and Its Impact on Local Environment in an Indian Megacity: The Case of Delhi

Abstract

This chapter presents urbanizing scenario of the megacity, Delhi. The changing land use land cover (LULC) and various environmental variables are discussed using the conjugation of space remote sensing inputs, geospatial analysis and statistical analysis. The two vital components of LULC viz., urban land use and fraction of green cover are important to demonstrate changing urban landscape and its impact on environmental quality. The environmental quality variables like greenness, imperviousness due to built-up intensity, moisture intensity, and bareness can be retrieved from remote sensing data. A general trend of diminishing greenness, especially along the peripheral areas with depleting moisture intensity of the city surface is a common phenomenon. The new industrial developments in the northern and urban expansion in the south-western parts of the city results in drastic and slight decline in moisture respectively. This is accompanied with increase in imperviousness and bareness in some cases in the same areas. The chapter explains the complex interactions between different land uses over the progression of urbanisation explaining the process in details taking Delhi as an example. Eventually the basis for environmental degradation and formation of Urban Heat Island (UHI) in the city is also explained using LULC and environmental variables and their change statistics. The chapter thus presents the process and impacts of urban land transformations in the metropolitan city of a developing nation, India in this case.