Assessment of Point-Based Fragmentation Using Geospatial Technology and Markov Chain Analysis: A Case Study of Kamrup Districts (Rural and Metro), Assam, India

This study aims to demonstrate the utility of Markov chain analysis and geospatial technology to assess point-based fragmentation. It has been observed that unprecedented urbanization is primarily responsible for abrupt changes in the land system of cities.Such abrupt changes may lead to fragmentation of urban landscape and its neighbourhood areas. Generally, fragmentation begins with point locations and may convert into line- and polygon-based fragmentations. This is necessary to understand that fragmentation has negative consequences on the habitat suitability and ecosystem of a city. Consequently, this may also affect the environment in the context of sustainability. Hence, the present work proposes a framework to identify the possible hot spots of point-based fragmentation. This may help in containing landscape fragmentation. It begins with identification of zones which are more vulnerable to fragmentation using Markov chain analysis. Next, the zone-based vulnerability analysis has been downscaled to point-based fragmentation using block statistics-based spatial overlay operation. Results of the proposed framework have been validated through field survey. It has been found that landscape is fragmenting in the identified hot spots by the proposed framework. Effective measures for containing point-based fragmentation in these places may be adopted to avoid the conversion of point-based fragmentation into either line-based or polygon-based fragmentation.