SPATIO-TEMPORAL TRENDS AND PATTERNS OF URBAN SPRAWL IN GUJRANWALA CITY, PUNJAB – PAKISTAN

Abstract

Gujranwala is the 7thlargest city of Pakistan which has 2 million of population. The objective of this study was to interpret the geographical setting of urban land use, to evaluate various types of urban land use and to understand the patterns of urban sprawl in Gujranwala city. For this purpose, the remotely sensed data and Geographical Information System techniques were used to classify the land-sat images for the year 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2015.For each remotely sensed data, rectification and classification was done and each image was classified separately. Land use change maps were detected by using different matrixes. The results showed that 97% of built-up area during 1990 to 2015 increased while there was 27% decreased in vegetation cover during this period. Urban sprawl was noticed mainly toward north and south ward along GT Road and toward west of the core of the city. Extensive urbanization in Gujranwala may cause several environmental problems such as smog, urban heat island, pollution and degradation of human health.