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Urban sprawl is wreaking havoc on natural resources in Developing countries such as India, which has a population of over one billion. To supply essential services like water, electricity, and sanitization, urban planners need information about the urban growth rate, extent of urban sprawl and pattern. In this study an attempt has been made to investigate and analyze the temporal and spatial dynamics of urban growth and its pattern of Surat, Rajkot and Ahmedabad during 2011 to 2020. Random forest classification algorithm has been applied to classify the Landsat satellite images. Temporal and spatial dynamics of urban growth is determined using the classified images. Various landscape metrics have been also used to quantify the pattern of urban sprawl such as Shannon’s diversity index (SHDI), landscape shape index (LSI), and Clumpiness index (CLUMPY). Also, these metrics were used to compare the growth pattern of Surat, Rajkot and Ahmedabad. Correlation between builtup and population is determined to study the relationship between population and urban sprawl. The results showing that there is significant increases in the builtup area of the cities. In Surat builtup area is increased from 144.17 Km2to 176.78 Km2 km, In Rajkot builtup is increased from 77.71 to 101.36 Km2and in Ahmedabad it is increased from 241.20 to 295.89 Km2. Landscape metrics are showing that cities are becoming compact, regular shaped and heterogeneous by the time. Value of Clumpiness index is showing that Ahmedabad city is more compact as compared to Surat and Rajkot city. Correlation results are showing that there is high correlation between population and builtup area, with increasing population builtup area is increasing but not with the same degree. Aside from the findings, this research demonstrates the utility of GIS and remote sensing approaches to understand the phenomenon of urban growth.
Keywords: Urban sprawl, GIS, Remote sensing, Landscape metrics, Surat, Rajkot, Ahmedabad.
