Forecasting urban growth based on GIS, RS and SLEUTH model in Pune metropolitan area

Geoinformatics is today used extensively for managing the rapidly growing urbanization of our cities and villages. Growing urban areas increasingly encroach on the surrounding rural areas putting enormous pressure on the meager infrastructure, very often leading to the unplanned and unsustainable development. The study area is Pune and its surrounding rural areas. In this study, a self modifying cellular automated Slope, Land use, Exclusion, Urban extension, Transportation and Hill shade model (SLEUTH) has been used to simulate and predict urban growth of Pune city by 2030 and its impact on the surrounding rural areas. The study is based on 38 years (19732011) of multitemporal data compiled and interpreted from Landsat images, Survey of India toposheets and Aster GDEM. The predicted urban growth shows that Pune city may expand mainly in the North and East, rather than in the South and West directions. Rural areas in Urli Knanchan, Wagoli, Rahu, Talegoan Dhandhere, Hadapsar and Thergaon revenue circles might be the most influenced areas of Pune's urbanization by 2030. This study showed that the combined approach of geographical information system, remote sensing and SLEUTH model is very useful in modeling and predicting the future urban scenarios, which help in planning of rural infrastructure development.