Understanding current and future landuse dynamics with land surface temperature alterations: A case study of Chandigarh

Abstract

Conversion of pervious layer to impervious layer through unplanned urbanization has been a major cause of natural disturbances across the world. However, urbanization is considered a metric that defines the socio-economic value of the city planning and management, if unplanned leads to many serious implications on the environment such as ecological imbalance, increased concentration of pollutants, loss of bio-diversity, etc. A steep increase in population growth, migration to cities and conversion of vegetated lands into other land use classes have been prime factors in expanding urban regions at faster urban growth rates causing sprawl in the periphery and the regions adjacent to the city resulting in increased temperatures. This paper addresses two major facades of urban growth: modelling urban growth pattern with business as usual scenario and understanding the land surface temperature (LST) dynamics with changing patterns of land use. Chandigarh administrative boundary with 10 km buffer has been considered for this analysis to understand the dynamics and sprawl. The outcome indicates that built-up has increased from 3.7% in 1991 to 16.16% in 2017 and the mean LST of the study area has increased by almost 12°C (months of March-May). Future prediction performed shows that there would be an extensive outgrowth due to saturated infilling in the core of the city. This analysis would be helpful to planners to understand region specific growth and transitions.