Application of cellular automata technique for prediction of growth pattern through Java programming

Cellular Automata (CA) is an effective simulation technique to study the dynamics of urbanization in rapidly growing cities, from different perspectives of planning and development. CA technique is convenient for encoding spatial structures like built up, agricultural land, waste land, industrial land, plantation etc. The information so generated by CA encoding would not only serve as baseline data but also help in providing predictive scenario to categorize the areas for sustainable urban development. Geographical Information System (GIS) is used to view and analyze data from a geographic perspective. The spatial representation of an object and its related attributes are merged into a unified data file. The paper demonstrates the futuristic view of the study area for the year 2020. The result includes statistical details of built up growth (63.64%) of the area under consideration.