Geospatial Analysis of Climate-Driven Landscape Change and Urban Expansion: Assessing Human–Environment Interactions, Resource Pressure, and Sustainable Spatial Planning

Abstract

The increasing demands and changing features of rapidly expanding cities and the impacts on land cover and the surface energy balance are evident. Yet, urban planners need to differentiate between the changes that have occurred and those which have been predicted. This study offers another geospatial analysis of the Delhi National Capital Region. This study complements previously published studies by the use of remote sensing techniques to retrieve land surface temperatures and studies of urban resource pressures. This study also incorporates land use and land cover studies of the years 2003, 2013 and 2023, which are based on the analysis of the Landsat imagery. The primary land use and land cover study analyzed an area of 13,754 km2 that includes the entirety of the Delhi National Capital Region and portions of the districts of Gurugram, Faridabad, Sonipat, Jhajjar, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar and Ghaziabad. This study also carried out a reanalysis of published land use and land cover maps to compute the absolute and relative changes and the annual growth rates. The area of land cover of built-up land increased from 1,893.64 km2 (13.77%) in 2003 to 3,386.76 km2 (24.62%) in the year 2023, which is an increase of 1,493.12 km (78.85%. CAGR 2.95%). Decreases were observed in the land cover of agricultural land, forests, water bodies and open land. The rate of land cover of built-up land slowed from an annual rate of 4.37% during 2003 to 2013, to an annual rate of 1.55% during the 2013 to 2023 period. The peripheral Shannon Entropy increased from a value of 0.24 to 0.36 during the same periods. The average land surface temperature of built-up land in Delhi, as reported independently of this study, increased by 5.23°C from 36.58°C in the year 2001 to 41.81°C in the year 2021. The integrated findings indicate that land that was previously agricultural and ecological cover has been extensively converted into built-up areas, intensifying surface warming and resource pressure across the urban periphery and underscoring the urgent need for sustainable spatial planning.