A case study on Urban Area Expansion

Built Environment Urban Area Expansion Er. Amit Pokhrel and Ar. Usha Mandal 12/20/2012

To find the exact information of the urban area expansion related data within the Kathmandu at the selected levels of criteria, as well as to know how the city is growing with urban structure and form.

Urban area expansion By: Er. Amit Pokhrel and Ar. Usha Mandal

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.

INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................................................

1.1.

Background..................................................................................................................................................

1.2.

Problemstatement.......................................................................................................................................

1.3.

Studyarea......................................................................................................................................................

1.4.

Objectives.......................................................................................................................................................

1.5.

Study question...............................................................................................................................................

1.6.

Structure of the study..................................................................................................................................

2.

URBANIZATION OF THE KATHMANDU VALLEY...................................................................................

2.1.

Introduction...................................................................................................................................................

2.2.

Evolution of urban areas..............................................................................................................................

2.3.

Causes of population growth in Kathmandu valley...................................................................................

3.

LAND USE AND LAND COVER ANALYSIS...................................................................................................

3.1.

Introduction...................................................................................................................................................

3.2.

Land use and cover change..........................................................................................................................

3.3.

Spatial land use analysis with GIS and Remote sensing........................................................

4.

IMAGE CLASSIFICATION..............................................................................................................................

4.1.

Introduction..................................................................................................................................................

4.2.

Image study...................................................................................................................................................

4.3.

Change Analysis............................................................................................................................................

4.4.

Urban land use prediction for 2019.............................................................................................................

5.

CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................................

6.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC AND REFERENCES.........................................................................................................

1.

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Urban Area Expansion is the result of urbanization process. Urbanization, in general, is known as the process of growth in the proportion of population residing in urban places. this is characterized by higher population growth within the city; as well as the migration of people from outside areas mainly rural to urban.

The urbanization process also involves the increase in number of urban fringes.

Agricultural land is continuously being converted to urban uses in the process of urbanization all over the world. Therefore, rural area get urbanized as their economy become less and less dependent upon agriculture. In summary, we can say that the demography and land use pattern change, industrailization and social transformation occur during the urbanization process.

In recent years, a diversified and growing economy has continuously attracted new residents and stimulated significant urban growth. about half of the world’s current population is urban and total urban population also increased threefold between 1950 and 2000. according to perera and pradhan(2005), 2 billion new residents being added to the cities of the developing world in the next 25 years and industrial development will continue putting pressure on land use and environment in the major cities areas.

In the developing countries, large cities are growing at a higher rate than those in the rest of the world. this means that 21st century will be the century of rapid urbanization.

Urban Area Expansion means the area or land covered by urban development which may include the different infrastructures bodies like watersupply, highways, roads, airports, open centres, open urban spaces, city planning and of course conserving of historical monument zone. due to centralization, mostly people in kathmandu valley want to arrive from different part of the country for study, trade and business, abroad studies and work and for politics.

The environment condition of kathmandu valley was very healthy endowed with rich forests and scenic beauty, improved river basin, and lower population with clean air. the soil is still very fertile as the valley is considered the site of an ancient huge lake. in the previous decades, the farmers knowingly or un knowingly practiced the organic farming with the adoption of agro-ecosystem. however, nowadays, the scenario has been completely reversed as the resources and environmental condition degraded badly due to rapid population growth. therefore, there is immediate need for proper planning of the kathmandu valley valuing the land resources for economic and environmental sustainability of the city.

1.2. Problem statement

The cities in Kathmandu Valley are expanding in improper way because of rapid population growth. as a consequence, there is a rising demand of land for residential use. between 1970 and 2001, large numbers of hectares of fertile and productive agricultural land area were lost to urbanisation, industrialization, and quarrying of sand, soil and stone. there has been a dramatic change in its land use composition during the periods 1970-1985 and 1985-2001. Improper urban development caused an adverse impact not only on agriculture and other land but also on the environmental condition and the livelihoods of the area in the long run.

Due to its geography, land is a scarce resource in kathmandu valley and therefore has to be used cautiously for its optimization and environmental sustainability. moreover, it is highly desirable to realize and access the real uncontrolled urban situation and its impacts on different important land use /cover to initiate the measures as early as possible to improve the environmental condition of kathmandu valley. However, the extensive expansions of urban centers over agricultural land is being poorly monitored due to the ill-equipped land monitoring system in Nepal This calls for planned development for the urban area and vicinities to minimize these kinds of problems and needs up-to-date information on the land use/cover and population of the kathmandu valley. therefore the study is intended to use GIS to acquire the information from landsat images for providing knowledge on the trend of land utilization and urban growth that can be useful for assessing the effects on the sensitive areas and planning unmanaged urban area expansion or we can say as urban growth in the kathmandu valley.

1.3. Study Area

Transformation with Time

Aerial view of- Boudhanath - 1960s 2002 and 2010.

1960’s photo source: Survey Department of Nepal 2002 and 2010 photo: Google earth

(Transformation with time: Aerial view of Boudhanath 1960ies and 2010 Up until 80ies Boudha was an isolated religious oasis surrounded by vast stretch of agricultural fields. Today like in the rest of the city, Boudha is dwarfed by the taller concrete buildings.)

Kathmandu Valley is the capital of Nepal, a country of highest peak known as the Mount Everest in the world. the valley is bowl shaped and positioned between 27 degree 32’ 13” to 27 degree 49’ 10” N latitude and 85 degree 11’ 31” to 85 degree

31’ 38” E longitude. it is at a mean elevation of about 1300 metres above sea level. it comprises three districts namely-kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur.

High sandstone mountain ranges stand all around three districts such as phulchowki in the south east, chandragari/champa devi in the south west, shivapuri in the north west and nagarkot in the north east. the altitude of these mountains varies around 1500 metres to 2800 meters. the three major river system in the valley are the Bagmati, Bishnumati and Manohara.

Ancient history of the kathmandu valley says that it was a huge lake which was settled after draining away all the water through chobhar gorge by a Manjusri Boudhisatha. early settelements were around very few places. townships developed and flourished through Indo-Nepal-Tibet trade. though many small towns were established by the second century A.D. and urban centers by the 11th century , according to the records, urbanization of the valley commenced in the late 1950’s, accelerating during the 1970’s.

According to the population census of 2001, kathmandu district had the biggest urban population and the highest number of households in Nepal({1952/54106,579 and in 2001-671,846}) Source- the CBS census reports (1952-2001).

Town Expansions of recent origin have evolved “Unplanned” with Kathmandu Valley towns as no exceptions. Although, the medieval towns of the kathmandu valley followed strictly the religious prescriptions of unwritten rules, very few Nepalease towns ever completely benefited from the modern rational planning process The contemporary physical growth of urban; Kathmandu exhibits an urban sprawl, expanding radially in All directions from the historic cores. reaching beyond the Ringroad, this octopus” growth has not only consumed the fertile agriculture land but also presented numerous problems related to the urban living. The serious consequences arise in having lost the continuity with the historic urban fabric and also in its inability to display any “coherent urban character”.

The red represents the settlements and yellow represents the cultivated land.

Kathmandu land use map-1967 The red represents the settlements and yellow represents the cultivated land

Kathmandu land Use Map-1978 Fairly same as 1976, the cities of Kathmandu and Patan starts to grow owing to easy access due to construction of National Highway and Ring road .Settlements around Baneswor and Sinamangal , maharajgunj booms.

Kathmandu land use Map-1991 Growth starts beyond the ring road. The inner areas get filled up

Kathmandu Land Use Map – 2000 The growth of the valley in later half of 20th century [see previous photos] out shines the growth that occurred over centuries.

Unfortunately we don't have landuse map of 2010 or beyond but when it comes out for the first time we may see built up area greater than cultivated area

1.3.1 Main study AreaAerial view- Baneswor area.

New Baneshwor: An overview of urban sprawl Unregulated growth of kathmandu valley is rapidly eroding the quality of urban living that was once a showpiece of coherent urban planning form in south Asia.

New Baneswor, a precinct in Kathmandu, with its uncontrolled housing and commercial development epitomizes this phenomenon. New Baneswor is a newly developed area of kathmandu valley located in south-east boundary of kathmandu metropolitan city(KMC). Developed over last 2-3 decades, this area is criticized for not having integrated planning and design approach in city building thus in turn, has resulted in extremly poor urban environment both in terms of built and visual qualities.

The built infrastructure has been poorly laid out and the place demonstrates no character with any significance urban design features. there exists severe shortages of public facilities, open spaces, green areas and urban amenities.

In the urban fabric of new baneswor area, one can obviously notice that the total vision is missing in the process of urban development which is also made evident by a totally confusing urban scenario.

The un-regulated urban growth also has its adverse impact on the infrastructure planning.

In our opinion, low quality infrastructure planing stems from the inefficient land sub-division contributing to the urban sprawl. mostly single family housing units on small/less plots do not allow high density, sprawling and scattered location of housing contribute to increase traffic, lack of open spaces, inefficiency of water supply and drainage system in poor sanitation and increased in air pollution.

1.4. Objectives The main aim of this study was to apply the methods of finding the exact details regarding urban area expansion or urban growth for the attainment of the following objectives: •

To use different images for the study of land use classification and analyze land use change or urban area expansion of the kathmandu valley

•

To know the amount of conversion of other land into urban land in different dates and model urban change or (urban area expansion) pattern of the kathmandu valley

1.5. Study questions The study was focussed to answer the following study questions: •

What was the trend of urban area expansion and its distribution?

•

What were the land use classes/practices in the city?

•

Which land use classes were mostly used for urban area expansion/urban growth?

•

What are the future trends of urban growth and which areas are most suitable for urban expansion?

•

Does manually willl be more effective to find the data and necessary images? what are the problem related here?

1.6. Structure of the Study •

Problem statement-study area/objectives/study question

•

Urbanization and Demographic status

•

Input data sets/classification-classification accuracy/landuse classesevaluation/change detection-model calibration, execution and validation/prediction of future till 2019/results and discussion Conclusion and future works

•

2. URBANIZATION OF THE KATHMANDU VALLEY The trend of demographic situation and urbanisation process in Kathmandu Valley has been discussed here. The evolution of urban areas and its trends in Kathmandu valley in comparison to the major cities of different geographic location of Nepal.

Since the study was focussed to study urbanization, it became important to study the cause of population growth and urbanization trends in the kathmandu valley. To solve the problems of cause and effect of urbanisation, different methods and techniques have been the suitable tools to perform the study.

Urban area expansion has been occuring outside the Kathmandu valley and construction of highways along the country.

Kathmandu had the highest percent of urban population in 1952/54 but it started decreasing as other parts of the country had started increasing the number of cities and the urban population up to 2001.

Among geographical regions, Kathmandu Valley had witnessed a relentless growth in the level of urbanisation and remains the most urbanized region in Nepal. kathmandu-centric development has resulted in rapid urbanization in the valley.

1952/54 only 47.4 Percent(%) of the valley’s population was urban. This had risen to 60.5% in 2001. the level of urbanisation during 1981-2001 of kathmandu valley is: In % 1981

1991

2001

47.4

54.1

60.5

A highly dynamic spatial pattern of urbanization can be observed in the Kathmandu valley which had developed fragmented and heterogeneous land use combinations.

If the trend of urbanisation continues, the total urban area will reach 34.3 percent of the valley by the end of 2020 and the total population of the five municipalities, which constitutes about 61 percent of the total valley population in 1991, is expected to reach 71 percent in 2013. (Some part were taken from the report.Author--)

2.3. Causes of population growth in Kathmandu Valley The main cause of population growth in Kathmandu valley is -due to migration, -Institutional centralization -Job opportunity -Institutions—services and financial institutions -Good academic institutions -Renowned health care units -Research centers, -Politics situation -And the entertainment industry.

This means that there are better job opportunities in Kathmandu than elsewhere in Nepal, resulting in excessive migration and inflow of people from other parts of the country and this results uraban area expansion and increase in settlements.

The rate of urbanization had increased due to good climatic condition, centralization of public services and insecurity concern of a decade long

insurgency around the country were the major causes of population growth, and urban area expansion of Kathmandu valley. Among the urban areas in the whole country, Kathmandu valley toped the trend of population increase and urban area expansion. figure- Distribution of population by district in Kathmandu valley District

1991

% of total 2001 population

% of total Annual population growth

Lalitpur

257,086

1.39

337,785

1.46

2.73

Bhaktapur

172,95

0.94

225,461

0.97

2.65

Kathmandu

675,341

3.65

1,081,845

4.67

4.71

Total

1,105,379

5.98

1,645,091

7.10

4.06

District

Area in sq.km

1981

1991

2001

Lalitpur

385

479

670

877

Bhaktapur

119

1,343

1,453

1,895

Kathmandu

395

1,069

1,710

2,739

899

852

1,230

1,830

Total

figure-Population density by district in Kathmandu valley According to CBS, the population in designated urban areas of Kathmandu valleyhad increased considerably by 5 times in 2001 than 1952/54. The details of urban population growth trend are shown below:

Region

152/54

1961

1971

1981

1991

2001

Kathmand u valley

196,777

218,092

249,563

363,507

598,528

995,966

Nepal

238,275

336,222

461,938

956,721

1,695,719 3,227,879

figure: Urban population growth trend Urbanization had not been uniform throughout the country. Most urbanized areas were in Kathmandu valley, which contributes significantly to the overall urbanisation status of the country. The average annual growth of the rural population was comparitively higher than for Nepal as a whole. the rest of the average annual growth rates are given below: Region

1952/54

1961-71

1981

U

R

U

U

Kathmandu valley

1.29

1.53 1.36

4.32 3.83

0.87 5.11 2.32

5.22 2.50

Nepal

4.40

1.56 3.23

2.03 7.55

2.40 5.89 1.79

6.65 1.72

R

1991 R

U

2001 R

U

R

Key: U=Urban; R=Rural (CBS 2003a) figure: Average annual growth rates of Urban and Rural population

According to ICIMOD, MoEST/GoN, UNEP,(2007), the total population of the Kathmandu valley was the sum of local inhibants, migrant population (refers to internal and external migrants), and transient population. Uneven allocation of resources for development and institutionalization in the valley had given rise to the transient movement of population for different purposes, mainly seeking services and institutional activities. The rapid urbanization in Kathmandu is stretching municipal boundaries and converting open spaces and agricultural fields into concrete jungles.

3. LAND USE AND LAND COVER ANALYSIS Like GEOMOD, a GIS software, which is a land use change simulation model that predicts, forward and backward, the location of grid cells that change over time. like that there is another software used as VALIDATE; these are used for validating the simulated map output. the VALIDATE module examines the agreement between the two maps that show the same categorical variable i.e comparing a pair

of true ending time maps versus simulated ending time map. In the comparison, the true ending map is reffered as “reference map” and the simulated map as “comparison map”. these kind of method is also suitable to find out the large images of kathmandu valley and others data related to them.

4.

IMAGE CLASSIFICATION

4.1.

Introduction The main aims of the study were to focus on the urban change analysis during the 1989 to 2006 period and to know the trend of urban area expansion in the further years by projecting urban land class.

4.2. Image study The 1989 and 2001 images were classified into layers. the overall total area of land use layers of the area was 88491 hectares. the map and the detail statistics of the classification results are given

figure: landsat image of 1989

figure: landsat image 2001(1999,clicked but published in 2001) The land use classes and the areas derived from the classification of 1989, 1999, and 2006 images are given in the following table: of Kathmandu valley

Serial Number

Land use class

Area in Hectare 1989

1999

2006

1

Agriculture

1335 0

12944

14420

2

Bare soil

1743 4

23742

21140

3

Built-up

2454

4366

5732

4

Forest

2804 4

28366

31509

5

Open area

2626 6

18680

15267

6

Water Total

943

393

423

8849 1

88491

88491

Table: Land use class type of class areas Bagmati and Manahara River

4.3. Land use and land cover classification Since the study is focussed on Urban area expansion and we ccan say here our study focussed on Urban land class change, the land use and land cover maps were re-classified into Built-up and Non-Built-up

land classes

Serial Number

Land use class

Area in Hectare 1989

1999

2006

1

Built-up

2454

4366

5732

2

Non-Built-up

86037

84125

82759

88491

88491

88491

Total Table: Land use re-class and areas

4.4. Change Analysis The change in area in hectare and percentage of all the land use classes and land use re-classes are presented below: Serial Number Land use

Area change in hectare Area change in % 19891999

19992006

19892006

+1476 +107 0

1989- 1999- 19891999 2006 2006

1

Agriculture

-406

2

Bare soil

+6308 -2602

3

Built-up

+1912 +1366 +327 8

+78.0 +31.0 +134.0

4

Forest

+322

+3143 +346 5

+1.0

5

Open area

-7586

-3413

6

Water

-550

+30

+370 6

-3.0

+11.0

+36.0 -11.0

+8.0 +21.0

+11.0

+12.0

-29 10999

-18.0

-42.0

-520

+8.0

-55.0

-58.0

Table: area change in hectare and percentage of land classes

The next table shows that the areas of open area and water land classes decreased significantly. The Built-up area has been increased by 134% during the study period.

Serial Number

Land use

area change in hectare

area change in %

19891999

1989 1999

19992006

19892006

1999- 19892006 2006

1

Built-up

+1912 +136 6

+1366 +78.0 +31.0 +134

2

Non-built up

-1912

-1366

-1366

-2.0

-2.0

-4.0

Table: area change in hectare and percentage of land reclasses

The above table shows that these has been significant increas in the amount of the Built up area during the study period. the cross classification map below shows the quantity of area change between the Built up and Non-built up land use classes. the map shows that during the 1989 to 2006 period 2454 hectare of Built up and 82759 hectare of Non-built up area remained unchanged. 1912 and 3278 hectares of Non built up area had been changed into Built up area in 1999 and in 2006 from 1989 respectively.

4.5. Urban land use prediction for 2019 After doing the project related work for Built Environment about the urban settlement in kathmandu valley which is about an urban area expansion or urban growth mainly in kathmandu valley. after all that kind of simulating model for 2006 land use and validation, the further simulation of land use was been predicted for upcoming years. we have taken till 2019 as a simulation process to verify the changes will occur or not on coming future. the simulation was for the year 2019, in the same way as for 2006 using the real land use re-classification maps of 1989 and 1999, transistion areas of matrix, group file of suitability maps and the default

cellular automats contiguity filters. though simply we cannot find the real and actual data by any means of survey in kathmandu valley by a manual means but we need some software and sattelite images to understand the real data and for to get relevant informations regarding different form of images and of landsat images and the different pixels which helps us to get real and understanding the exact maps from the geographic information system with remote sensing methods to understand a whole map of kathmandu valley.

The comparison matrix for area of real 2006 land use re-classed map and projected 2006 and 2019 re-classed maps is presented below Serial Number

Land use

Area in hectare 2006

2006 2019 projected projected

1

Built-up

5732

5477

7884

2

Non-Built-up

8275 9

83014

80607

8849 1

88491

88491

Total

Table: comparison statistics of true and projection maps

5.

CONCLUSIONS

It was concluded from our URBAN AREA EXPANSION Study that the centralized public services in the capital cities were the main reasons for the population flood and rapid urbanization in the Kathmandu valley. Another cause of the migration flow in the Kathmandu valley was insecurity in the rural and remote places because of a decade long insurgency in Nepal.

While reviewing on demographic situation of Kathmandu valley, it shows that the population had increased about 48% during 1991 to 2001. the annual population growth rate was 4.71%.

due to the population influx and without proper land use plan, the urban areas are being increased haphazardly in Kathmandu valley. An analysis in this study showed that the Built up areas has increased by 134% since 1989 until 2006. the most fertile lands are converted into concrete lands.

6% of agricultual lands including bare soil were coverted into Built up during the study period.

Because of the precious land value of the capital cities, people have also started encroaching the open areas which are public lands. about 11985 hectares of open areas have already been encroached of which about 11% was converted into Built-up.

These trends have not been stopped yet and could be expected to grow continuously in the future unless the the proper land use paln is formulated. The proper land uses for Urban Area Expansion or Urban Growth should be defined with intensive analysis of different concerns in the formulations of new land use plan.

6.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC AND REFERENCES:

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Poudel, P.C. (1982). A Study Urban Land use in Pokhara Town. Kathmandu: (unpublished) Research Report, Submitted to Dean's Office, IOHS, T.U. Ranjitkar, N.G. (1883).

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Thomos, M.L. and W. K. Ralph (1987). Remote Sensing and Image Interpretation. New York: John Wiley and sons.

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