Assessment of urban expansion and associated spatial transformation of Chandannagar city, West Bengal

Abstract

The Chandannagar city, as a former French colony and a historic trading centre, has witnessed a steady growth throughout the French colonial era, and the process is still in action even today. Such urban extension has altered the land use/cover (LULC) fabric both in the core and fringe areas by transforming the natural landscape. The prime goals of the study are to assess the magnitude of urban expansion of the city from 1991 to 2016 and its consequent spatial transformation by using geospatial techniques. Three indices, that is, Built-up Index (BUI), Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Modified Normalised Difference Water Index (MNDWI) are employed to perceive the spatio-temporal dynamics of LULC from the remotely sensed data. Annual Growth Rate (AGR) and Land Use Integrated Index (LDI) are used to evaluate the rate, magnitude, and nature of changes. The results reveal that the rapid increase in built-up area from 7.9 sq. Km. in 1991 to 14.45 sq. Km. in 2016 has transformed nearly 51.52% of the non-forest vegetation covers and 58.18% of the water bodies of the city during the observation period.