Monitoring urban growth and land use changes using GIS and remote sensing: A case study of Tehsil Burewala

Geospatial data is being extensively used to monitor the changes in an urban environment and assists as a decision-making tool for sustainable urban growth of the towns and cities. Intermediate and small cities of Pakistan are also getting urbanized day by day due to population growth and infrastructure development. The tehsil Burewala is one of the intermediate tehsil of Punjab province with Burewala city as Headquarter. Burewala city is included in medium sized cities of Pakistan presenting a kind of social and economic interaction. Urban growth of the city has extended beyond the municipal limits converting peri-urban vegetation into built up land. This study is aimed to focus on analyzing the urban growth of tehsil Burewala from 1981 to 2011 using Geo-spatial techniques. The land use changes and urban growth of the tehsil were analyzed using Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS) and Thematic Mapper (TM) data. The results of land cover classification revealed that built up area of the tehsil increased from 3.3% in 1981 to 4.7% in 2011. Likewise, vegetation cover of the tehsil is also increased from 66% in 1981 to 81% in 2011. The change detection analysis further depicted the conversion of barren land into agriculture in four rural areas of the city, while peri-urban agriculture is converted into built up assisted by residential and commercial development of the tehsil. The urban growth of the city is increased at the rate of 4.2% from 1981 to 2001 and 2% from 2001 to 2011. GIS based analysis of land use maps also revealed an increase in built up from 29% in 1981 to 62% in 2011. Remote sensing and GIS based analysis of urban growth of intermediate cities can be proved as basis of urban planning and management for decision makers.