Abstract:
In the present day spatial planning plays a major role in the development of the country. India being a country with a population of around 1.2 billion people, providing them with the necessary required infrastructure and services is a challenging task. Due to increase in frequency of natural disasters the proper land use planning is unavoidable. Since the population is increasing in a rapid rate the need of resources is also increasing at an alarming rate. This has resulted in the over usage of the natural resources resulting in environmental imbalance which can cause natural disaster. There are other environnient issues like air and water pollution cause due to urbanization and industrialization. Preparedness for disaster is critical as it hits when least expected. The frequency of disaster has been increasing these days. Disaster Mitigation can be done by proper land use planning in these regions by taking disaster related parameters into consideration. The Ministiy of Environment and Forestry has declared 29 Eco-Sensitive Zones and most of these areas are not easily accessible; thus, making the land use planning of these areas a challenging task. Due to the developments in Remote Sensing technologies we are able to acquire satellite images of these locations and through image processing; most of the analysis can be done. With the help of these technologies land use planning of these areas can be done with a great accuracy by including the disaster related aspects and thus making land suitability maps for these locations. Meeting the ecological compatibility while making a land use plan becomes challenging because of the conflicting goals and the uses of land. Main challenges faced are (luring the issues of resource extraction activities, infrastructure for settlement, recreational activities, sustaining the compositional and structural complexity of ecological systems, etc. Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), has been playing a major - role in the land use planning. With these technologies the assessment of settlement patterns can be done in a faster pace, even of the areas that are not easily accessible. The review of studies have done which has shown the efficiency of remote sensing and GIS technologies, and its efficiency in assessing the land use/ land cover characteristics. This would help in site selection for future development of these regions in more secure manner.
