Dr.Anil Kumar Sinha
Title
Monitoring Urban Changes during the Past Decade along the Margin of Ambikapur City, Sarguja District, Chhattisgarh State Using Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques: A Case Study
Document Abstract
Given the spatial and temporal scale at which urban changes are occurring in many parts of the
nation, it has become increasingly important to monitor these changes as they play an important role in
deciphering the status of agriculture. Remote sensing and GIS emerges as an important tool for monitoring the
rates, patterns, and consequences of urban expansion. To deal with this aspect of urban expansion at the cost of
agricultural land within a region, we have carried out satellite image based investigation of the marginal areas
around the Ambikapur City of Sarguja district in Chhattisgarh state. We have utilized the TERRA - ASTER
imagery of 2004 and 2016 to conduct preliminary survey of the study region, following which portions around
the marginal areas of study region have been selected for detailed investigation. The selected areas have been
analyzed using the Google Earth data products of 2007 and 2014 for assessing the extent of urban changes
during the different periods of data acquisition. This has lead to identify the specific urban classes that have
undergone change and/or modification during 2007-2014 while influencing the spatial extent of agricultural
lands. The observations and findings of this case study implicates that urbanization in the marginal areas of
Ambikapur city has considerably affected the agricultural lands in the respective areas. Taken together, in this
study we present an additional new example of urban expansion in the nation that suggests urban planners to
immediately embrace new plans for urbanization; otherwise, it may eventually drown the extent of agriculture
throughout the nation.