Assessment of urban sprawl and land use change dynamics through GIS and remote sensing in Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan

Abstract

Background: Urban sprawl is a quite complexed phenomenon with several
environmental and social implications. Therefore, its assessment, analysis and,
modelling are imperative for effective urban planning.
Objectives: The current study aims at assessing the urban sprawl and spatiotemporal LULC changes in Metropolitan Corporation Quetta – capital of
Balochistan and the 10th most populous city of Pakistan through GIS and remote
sensing data during the period of 1999 to 2019.
Methods: Landsat 7 ETM+, Landsat 5, and Landsat 8 OLI for the years 1999, 2009,
and 2019 along with Shannon’s entropy model integration with GIS were used to
assess land use land cover (LULC) changes and spatial dispersion and compactness
of urban sprawl.
Results: Results show that the built-up area is highly increased (52.33%) from
105.14 km2
to 160.17 Km2 and massive loss (59.38%) has occurred in vegetation
cover from 74.31 Km2 (1999) to 30.18 Km2 (2009). Moreover, built-up area is
increased drastically (99.89 Km2
, 95%) and open areas are lost by (52.99 Km2
, 34%
from 1999 to 2019. The overall relative Shannon’s entropy values for the years
1999, 2009 and 2019 are 0.919, 0.940, and 0.957 respectively, which are closest to
the upper limit 1, thus, indicates the spatial dispersion within the study area during
the study period.
Conclusions: The use of geospatial technologies for assessing and monitoring the
pace of urban sprawl and LULC change dynamics in Quetta city may assist to
manage and control the unplanned and haphazard urban growth and sprawl in the
city. Moreover, a comprehensive Master Plan of Quetta city is the need of the
today. Besides this, effective coordination among the planning and development
departments is direly needed. Further research can be done on the use of GIS and
remote sensing for future prediction of changes in urban sprawl and LULC.