Modeling urban dynamics along two major industrial corridors in India

Rapid urban growth and consequent sprawl have been a major concern in urban planning towards the provision of basic amenities and infrastructure. The current research was undertaken as per the recommendations of brainstorming session involving stakeholders from academia, government agencies and industry. The outcome of this study is expected to provide the vital inputs to the federal government to provision basic amenities and smart infrastructure, to boost the industrial growth, while maintaining the local ecology and environment and support local livelihood. Spatial patterns of land use dynamics have been analysed in two major corridors (with 10km buffer on either side). During the past two decades, the urban growth is about 441% along Mumbai-Pune Industrial corridor and 276% along Chennai-Bangalore-Mangalore corridor. The prediction of likely growth has been done using Markov-cellular automation model, accounting fuzzy behavior of agents. Spatial metrics confirm that the core urban areas of major cities have concentrated growth and sprawl at the outskirts. Prediction model estimates that urban area would increase to 47.1% by 2027 in Mumbai-Pune corridor and to 35.4% in 2029 in Chennai-Mangalore corridor. This study aids in pre-visualising the urban growth to evolve appropriate management strategies to mitigate environmental impacts.