Urban sprawl assessment in Raipur and Bhubaneswar urban agglomerations from 1991 to 2018 using geoinformatics

The rapid urban growth after India’s economic liberalization is likely to foster urban sprawl in mid-sized cities. Therefore, this paper attempts to assess the urban sprawl in Raipur and Bhubaneswar urban agglomerations, fast-growing mid-sized Indian cities. Based on remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS), multi-temporal Landsat satellite imagery from 1991 to 2018 was extracted for land cover change detection and urban sprawl assessment. Shannon’s entropy index was employed to detect urban sprawl, while its typologies were quantified using the neighborhood relationship approach. The economic policies and urban development schemes adopted after the economic liberalization were discussed to understand its implication on the urban growth pattern of the two cities. The overall results confirm the loss of agriculture, water body, and fallow land cover due to rapid urban expansion. The population density of Raipur was comparatively higher than Bhubaneswar; however, the former exhibited a decreasing trend. The entropy index indicated the prevalence of urban sprawl in both cities. The assessment of urban sprawl typologies revealed the expansion of secondary urban core and urban fringe towards the peripheral areas during the study period. The research recommends the implementation of urban growth containment strategies to control urban sprawl.