SYSTEM EVOLUTION USING HIGH RESOLUTION SATELLITE DATA FOR URBAN REGIMES

Abstract

Urban planning and management, both requires intensive information handling for decision-making. The poor information, limited integration and sharing poses difficulty in the plan implementation and its monitoring. The general mismanagement of urban areas and lack of accurate and timely available information often results in ineffective planning. Urban planning requires inputs from different experts of various disciplines. Proper and timely interchange of information at different levels can be helpful in planning and management. Thus, an integrated information system is the basic requirement of any city for effective planning and management. With this in mind, the aim of this research is to evolve an information system to support the various activities related to planning, its implementation, monitoring and management in an integrated manner, termed as urban regimes. Effective and efficient planning of urban development requires current and accurate information. New generation of very high spatial resolution satellite data offers an important, alternative source of data in this regard. With the diversity of new digital information products particularly, very high spatial resolution imagery (1 mand fine), an evaluation of the capacity of these new data source is necessary in the framework of urban studies. In fact, the capacity ofthis new source ofinformation to answer the enduser needs related with physical, social, fiscal, environmental and legal parameters have been investigated in this research. For this purpose, six representative wards, namely, ward no. 39 - Race Course (N), ward no. 12- Dharampur, ward no. 23 - Devsuman Nagar, ward no. 4 - D.L. Road, ward no. 36 - Dhamawala and ward no. 34 - Dandipura, of varying characteristics of Dehradun Municipal Corporation are selected for detailed study. The criteria for the selection of the wards are based on the land use pattern, development pattern, population density etc. Large-scale base map at the scale of 1:2000 has been prepared using IKONOS satellite data for these six wards. Base map prepared from high-resolution satellite data is useful to integrate the attributes related with various parameters, which provide scientific visualization about existing scenario. Database prepared using the remote sensing and GIS are used to analyses the

existing scenario related to various aspects of urban areas. Physical scenario has been investigated through land use pattern and accessibility in study area. Quantitative determination of land use transformation in different wards allows to understand the changing pattern and functions within urban fabric. Social scenario is studied to trace the development pattern of different income groups. Within a small area, housing units ofall categories shows the persuasive aspect of everyday life, which very much affects the conventional urban analysis. Fiscal aspect has been explored to understand the trend of property tax contributed by an average dwelling unit of different income groups. Environmental aspect has been studied to quantify the effect of increasing population on urban environmental quality, which draws together the relationship related to various land covers. Legal aspect is discussed to find the causes for the development of informal settlements and its consequences on the environment. Investigations show that the use of remote sensing achieves greatest success when data are combined with other secondary data related to various aspects. The digital depictions of geographical reality in high-resolution satellite data are increasingly capable of capturing the physical as well as socio-economic structure of cities. This research demonstrates credible relationships between various parameters. It shows the capabilities of high spatial resolution satellite data to handle the problems related with changing physical and social scenario, urban environment and ecology as well as fiscal and legal aspects. The integration and sharing of land-related information such as physical, socio-economic etc. are incorporated in the proposed system. System development emphasizes the data gathering process and structural changes to improve urban information management. The traditional hierarchically-oriented vertical system of city is supported by a horizontally oriented networks from ward to city level. It recognizes the diverse nature and the horizontal network model of the interaction field. It provides a set of circumstances under which urban local bodies can share data and collaborate on analysis.