Assessment of Land Use around highly populous business centre of Lucknow City using GIS techniques and high resolution Google Earthâ€™s Quickbird satellite data

Swadesh Kumar; Ram Nayan Yadava; Sudhir Kumar Singh; Sk Mustak

Swadesh Kumar Department of Environmental Sciences, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar (A Central) University, Lucknow-226025, Uttar Pradesh, India
Ram Nayan Yadava Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India
Sudhir Kumar Singh K. Banerjee Centre of Atmospheric & Ocean Studies, IIDS, University of Allahabad, Allahabad-211002, Uttar Pradesh, Indi
Sk Mustak School of Studies in Geography, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India

Abstract

The Google Earth (GE) and Geographical Information System (GIS) based software are widely used for assessment of land use. GE software provides free images in high resolution that give some prospects of recent land use land cover. The GIS is used as a tool to find out the impact of developmental activities around the cities. The present study demonstrates the applicability of GE software for assessment of land use around highly populous business centre of Lucknow city using ArcGIS v 9.3 software and High Resolution Google Earthâ€™s Quickbird satellite data. The study has been carried out in 12 km radius around Hazratganj Square at Lucknow city. The total study area covered about 71585.29 acres (289.70 kmÂ²) land that is classified into residential, offices, park, water body, green land, and rail/road and open land. The findings explore the different land use, which include residential (53.53%), offices (8.6%), parks/playgrounds (2.46%), green patch (10.52%), river/water bodies (17.48%), rail/road (1.53%), open land (3.37%) and agricultural land (2.52%). The results reveal that the residential area has been growing rapidly. These results can boost theplanners and policy makerâ€™s knowledge to attain and sustain future urban development.