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218 Indian Cartographer |Vol.35|2015
PATTERNS OF LAND USE IN AND AROUND KOLKATA CITY:
A SPATIO - TEMPORAL ANALYSIS
Sushobhan MAJUMDAR1 & Lakshmi SIVARAMAKRISHNAN2
ABSTRACT
Urbanization refers to the increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas and it leads to the urban expansion.
Urban expansion is the indications of urbanization and it greatly affects socio-economic growth and the decision making
process for urban development policies. Therefore analyzing the patterns of land use change is an essential issue and it is
needed for land use planning and future land management. Kolkata is one of the major metropolitan cities in India. The
percentage of land use change in the ‘City of Joy’ is less in city core areas and it is much high in city peripheral areas. The
physical expansion of the city grew linearly in south-easterly and south-westerly direction beside the eastern side of the
river Hooghly as we have seen in the recent satellite imageries. Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA) is spread over 1875.04
Sq.km (Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority, 2006). To analyse the expansion of the Kolkata city Remote
Sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS) tool has been applied because it is very useful tool for analyzing
land use changes on spatio- temporal scale.
The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the spatial expansion of Kolkata city and to study the growth rate in the
municipalities around Kolkata city within Kolkata Metropolitan Area. Side by side an effort has been done to find out the
spatial patterns of land use change and vegetation cover change and lastly to identify the patterns of recent land use
change within Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA).
Keyword(s): Urban Expansion, Spatio-temporal Scale, Land use change, Vegetation cover change, Land management.
1. Research Scholar, Department of Geography, Jadavpur University.
2. Professor and Head, Department of Geography, Jadavpur University.
INTRODUCTION
Land use and land cover are used to analyse the
geographical features on land. Land use is a series of
activities on land carried out by man with an
intension to obtain product or benefit through the
use of land (Nayak, 2014). According to Mc Cloy,
(1995) land use describes the use to which the land is
put, while land cover describes the surface
characteristics. The spatial patterns and dynamic
mechanisms of urban land use growth in the western
industrialized countries have been well explored and
documented in multi-disciplinary schools such as
human ecology, spatial economics, social behaviour
and political economies ( Liu et al.,2001)
Land use expansion is mainly driven by population
growth, social and economic development. It has
always been the focus of academic research as well
as social and economic debates because land use
growth entails high profitability and risk in economic
aspect, huge consumption of cultivated land with
serious negative externalities on environmental
sustainability (Bourne, 1996; Fischel, 1982; Peiser,
1989). Land use and land cover change is a
consequence of human interference which aimed at
satisfying human needs, either material or spiritual
or both from the complex of natural and artificial
resource (Vink, 1975)
STUDY AREA
Kolkata is one of the major metropolitan city in India.
The rate of land use change in the ‘City of Joy’ is less
in city core areas and high in city peripheral areas.
The physical expansion of the city grew linearly in
south-easterly and south-westerly direction beside
the eastern side of the river Hooghly as we have seen
in the recent satellite imageries .The concept of
Calcutta Metropolitan Area is introduced by the
Town and Country Planning Act of 1979 when its
area was nearly 1300 sq.km. According to the 2011
census data, the total population of Kolkata
Metropolitan Area is 14,112,536. It is under the control
of KMDA (Kolkata Metropolitan Development
Authority) which is established in 1970 under
presidential ordinance and later sanctified under the
KMDA Act of 1972.It is mainly a developmental
agency with the purpose of carrying out major
infrastructure development within KMA. After the
journey of nearly 43 years of KMDA has still the
authorization for urban planning and development
within Kolkata Metropolitan Area.
The KMA extends from Kalyani to Budge Budge in
the east bank and from Bansberia (Fig. 1) to Uluberia
in the west bank of river Hooghly. It covers an area
of 1875.04 km² (KMDA, 2006) that includes three
municipal corporations, 38 municipalities, 70 non
municipal urban units, 14 out growths, 422 rural areas
(KMDA, 2005). It covers six districts of West Bengal
i.e. South 24 Parganas, North 24 Parganas, Kolkata,
Howrah, Hooghly and Nadia. KMA is one of the
biggest urban agglomerations in India. It is located
Indian Cartographer |Vol.35|2015 219
in the eastern India at 22. 340N, 88. 200E beside the
Ganges River at an elevation ranging from 1.5 to 9 m
(SRTM image, NASA, Feb 2000).
OBJECTIVES
The main objectives of the study area
• To analyse the growth rate of Kolkata city and
its surrounding area within the Kolkata
Metropolitan Area.
• To assess the land use and land cover changes
around Kolkata city in recent years. (2010, 2015)
• To find out the nature of present vegetative cover
in and around Kolkata City.
• To analyze the changes in the land use pattern of
Kolkata Metropolitan Area between year 2010-
2015.
DATABASE AND METHODOLOGY
In this study demographic related data from two
census year i.e. 2001 and 2011 has been collected. In
addition to this Landsat satellite images i.e. (Landsat
5 TM image of 21th January, 2010 and Landsat 8
image of 8th march of 2015) were acquired for
evaluating the temporal and spatial characteristics of
urban expansion from 2010 to 2015.To show the city
expansion supervised classification of two
consecutive years has been used as described in
(Fig. 2). To analyse the nature of vegetation cover
NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) has
been used. All the remote sensing techniques have
been done using Erdas Imagine 9.2 software. To
analyze the growth rate of Kolkata Metropolitan Area
within the municipalities different statistical
techniques has been used.
DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
Growth of Kolkata
Kolkata, formerly Calcutta is the Capital city of West
Bengal. Its origin dates back to 1690 when a factory
was set by the Job Charnock for the East India
Company and is believed that he was the Founder of
Calcutta City. Between the year 1773-1911, Calcutta
was the major trade centre of East India Company
and also the Capital of India. After the Independence
huge number of refugees from Bangladesh, formerly
‘East Pakistan’ came to Kolkata which is the major
cause of huge population increase in Kolkata city.
Kolkata city is situated on the east bank of the river
Fig. 1 : The Study Area
Fig. 2 : Flow Chart for Analyzing Urban Expansion
220 Indian Cartographer |Vol.35|2015
Hooghly (Hugli) on the lower Gangetic delta which
is part of the Bengal basin. It stands on a thick alluvial
deposit of the great antiquity. Geologists agree that
Kolkata is a part of submerged sundry trees found
beneath the city (Nair 1986).
The cancerous growth of Calcutta as a primate city
which is rounded by a backward agricultural
hinterland and it is supported by any hierarchical
structure of urban centre has become a subject matter
of study of politicians; planners and social scientists
in India and drawn the attention of urban researchers
throughout the world. (Munsi, 1975).
technology enabled services, medical transcription etc
in the city core areas. Other than that the commuters
from different districts near and around Kolkata city
used to come to city for their daily work.
Demographic Growth
The urban expansion is driven by the increase of
population from 1991 to 2011 and it results into
residential land expansion from the city towards fringe
areas. The growth rate of population (Fig. 4) in Kolkata
Metropolitan Area in recent decades is very high
which creates extreme pressure on land resources.
Over the last 20 years of time, the process of urban
growth or urban population concentration in Kolkata
Metropolitan Area experiences high growth. For e.g.
different municipalities like Bhadreswar, Rajpur-
Sonarpur, Bidhannagar, Barasat, Madhyamgram,
Kalyani, Naihati and Kanchrapara experience high
growth rate from the year 1991-2001 which is also
higher than the state average population growth rate.
But in case of the year from 2001-2011 Maheshtala,
Budge Budge, Bidhannagar, Rajarhat Gopalpur,
Madhyamgram, Barasat, Kalyani and Gayeshpur
Municiplaity experiences high growth rate. It clearly
indicates the growth is towards city fringe areas. This
growth rate is relatively high in south western and
north eastern Kolkata in the recent decades. As a
result large percentage of non-built up areas are
converted into residential areas.
Fig. 3: Population Growth in Kolkata Metropolitan Area
and Kolkata Municipal Corporation
The flow of migration from the other states of India
and from the other regions of West Bengal to Kolkata
now-a-days is increasing due to the concentrated
development in business outsourcing, information
Fig. 4 : The Growth Rate in Kolkata Metropolitan Area
Indian Cartographer |Vol.35|2015 221
Due to lack of open spaces and high land prices in
the city core areas the people are unable to purchase
land to their desirable prices. So they moved towards
metropolitan areas or suburbs for the better standard
of living. As a result the population density of those
areas are increasing day by day (Figure: 5). This
expansion of city mainly towards semi-urban areas
because of a ‘city centrifugal forces’ that is forced by
lack of open spaces in city core areas. These forces
are extremely active from city towards non urban
areas. It develops many urban centers in the city
fringe areas. Some of these urban centers are very
well developed for e.g. Eden city, Hiland-Greens in
Maheshtala region and Rajawada Lakebliss,
Southwinds in Sonarpur region etc.
Land Use and Land Cover Change
Supervised classification is the most common method
to show the Spatio-temporal change of land use and
land cover. From the classified images of 2010 (Figure:
6) it has seen that percentage of built up area is high
in city core areas. Only 28.96% (Table: 2) or 217.39
sq.mile (Table: 1) of the total area is under vegetation
cover and 5.22% or 39.21 sq.mile of the total area is
under wet land. But most striking land use feature in
the year 2010 in and around Kolkata city is nearly
half i.e. 45.33% of the total land are under the built
up area or residential area. It is followed by the
agricultural area which is 20.46%. The percentage of
agricultural land and wetland are relatively high in
city fringe areas because vegetables and fishes from
Fig. 5 : Population Densities in KMA
Fig. 6 : Land Use and Land Cover Classification in 2010. Fig. 7 : Land Use and Land Cover Classification in 2015.
222 Indian Cartographer |Vol.35|2015
those areas used to come to city for the basic needs of
city people and those regions acts as a storehouse of
vegetables of Kolkata city
Table: 1
Land Use Features in and Around Kolkata City
Features Name Area in Sq miles
2010 2015
Vegetation 217.39 191.21
Water body 39.21 38.84
Built up Area 340.24 414.47
Agricultural Area 153.61 105.91
Source: Computed by the Authors.
But from the classified images of 2015 (Fig. 7) it has
been seen that the percentage of vegetation cover was
reduced by nearly 3% i.e.25.48% within five years
span of time. The main reason for the reduction of
water body are because of residential expansion in
city suburbs which is mainly driven by promoters
who are uses those wet land for new construction or
for real estate development. For e.g. beside the
Barrackpore-Kalyani expressway large percentage of
wetland are converted into settlement area. But the
percentage of built up area has increased up to 9.90%
i.e. 55.23% which is greater than half of the area. For
the expansion of the built up area, agricultural area
has also reduced up to 6%. These type of conversion
(i.e. from agriculture to built up area) is much high
in Barasat, Bansberia, Gayeshpur, Pujali, Maheshtala
municipal area as we have seen in the classification
of satellite imageries.
Table: 2
Percentage of Land Conversion
Features Name Areas in Change in
Percentage Percentage
2010 2015 2010-2015
Vegetation 28.96 25.48 3.48
Water body 5.22 5.17 0.04
Built up Area 45.33 55.23 -9.81
Agricultural Area 20.46 14.11 6.35
Source: Computed by the Authors.
The primary feature of land cover change of this area
is that large areas of agricultural land and wet land
are occupied by urban construction.
Vegetation Cover Analysis using NDVI
NDVI was used as an index of vegetation abundance.
This index is related to biomass, chlorophyll content
and water stress. The lowest values are found on less
vegetative soils because reflection from the soil is high
and produces low values in the infrared band and
high values in the red band. High NDVI value
indicates high vegetation cover. It was calculated by
using:
NDVI=TM Band4- TM Band3/TM Band4+TM Band3
Water body are dark toned in both the images. In case
of images in 2015 low NDVI values (Fig. 8) are
concentrated in north and central Kolkata areas
(Table 3). Other areas except these two experience
high NDVI values which are always increasing
towards city fringe areas.
Fig. 8 : NDVI Classification
Table: 3
NDVI values in the images of 2015
Value Indicate Places
0.31 to 0.45 Moderate Mainly Western and
vegetation southern part of KMA
0.30 to 0.15 Stressed In East Kolkata
vegetation wetlands
0 to 0.14 Bare rock or soil Central Kolkata and
Northern Kolkata
Source: Computed by the Authors.
CONCLUSION
Kolkata has been developing fast in recent decades
because of high employment opportunity, good
health infrastructure etc. e.g. in Kolkata city
Bidhannagar (Sector-V) experiences large scale
development because of the concentration of IT
Industries and technological development.
Continuous increase of population and housing
demands accelerated the real estate development on
the outskirts of Kolkata city basically in south-western
Kolkata (e.g Maheshtala, Pujali region). It leads to the
conversion of farmland and wetland into the
Indian Cartographer |Vol.35|2015 223
residential area. As a result large scale construction
or major real estate projects has been taken place in
the city fringe areas. These type of major constructions
resulted into land use change.
From the above analysis of land use and land cover
change in Kolkata during the past twenty years, it
can be found that built up area or residential area are
increased a lot while agricultural land or non-built
up areas reduced very rapidly. The reason for this
change is lack of open space in the city core areas
which influenced people to move to less urbanized
areas. In recent years Maheshtala, Pujali,
Madhyamgram, Rajarhat Gopalpur, Baidyabati, Bally
and Kalyani municipality experiences high growth
rate. But more minutely observation it can be found
that in recent decades there are a tendency of people
are to live in those places which are nearer to city.
This tendency indicates us that connectivity is one of
the major criteria of the local people to choice their
residents.
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