Assessment of Spatio Temporal Changes in Landscape along Blue Green Infrastructure-Case of Bangalore City

Abstract

India is witnessing the highest rate of urbanization in this century. As per the 2011 census, 31.3 per cent of the country is urbanized, resulting in a change in the landscape of cities and changes in land use, causing the transition from a rural to a more urban society. As urbanization increases, it reflects the loss of vegetation, agricultural land, open space, etc. These changes in the landscape pattern significantly impact the existing ecology, like water networks and other ecosystems. An ecological layer is embedded in the urban area to support all the ecosystem services needed for the cities. This paper explores various ways to analyze the change in the landscape across different GI elements and its impact on the surrounding context in Bangalore city. GI elements in this paper refer to the town’s Green Blue network like Nala and lakes and green buffer spaces along the lakes and nala. Change in the landscape is natural and inevitable. In the scenario of forced urbanization or unplanned growth, the shift in landscape patterns may adversely affect the GI elements and surrounding spaces. In the era of ever-growing cities and Globalization, it is crucial to study the diversity of GI elements and associated urban spaces to protect the characteristics of these elements and spaces. Bangalore has many essential, unique GI elements that are getting lost in urbanization.