RESEARCH ARTICLE Assessment of Vegetation Cover of Bengaluru City, India, Using Geospatial Techniques K. Ganesha Raj 1 • Shivam Trivedi 1 • K. S. Ramesh 1 • R. Sudha 1 • S. Rama Subramoniam 1 • H. M. Ravishankar 1 • A. Vidya 1 Received: 8 June 2020 / Accepted: 2 November 2020 Ó Indian Society of Remote Sensing 2020 Abstract Bengaluru has a unique place due to its pleasant weather and green cover. Off late, the city has witnessed phenomenal urban growth, especially during last few decades. This study was envisaged to assess the decadal changes in vegetation cover of Bengaluru using multispectral IRS satellite imagery of 2006 and 2019 within Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) area. Satellite datasets were analysed to assess changes in vegetation cover during the last decade. Vegetation (tree cover) within BBMP area was estimated to be 26.1% (18,572.2 ha) in 2019 as compared to 30.1% (21,414.9 ha) in 2006, indicating an overall reduction of 4%. Overall classification accuracy was estimated to be 92.1% for 2006 and 95.9% for 2019. Based on the analysis, a vegetation change map highlighting positive change areas, negative change areas and no change areas within vegetation categories were prepared for 198 BBMP wards. A total of 730 GT sample points were also collected along with geo-tagged field photographs, which covered diverse niche areas with different vegetation components and density classes, as well as non-vegetated urban and other areas. Recommendations have been given to sustain and improve existing vegetation cover. Keywords Vegetation cover Á Urban growth Á Geospatial Á Change assessment Á Densification Introduction Bengaluru (earlier called Bangalore), the Silicon City of India; known for gardens, parks, Institutes and IT industry; is the administrative, commercial, industrial, Science and knowledge capital of the state of Karnataka (Ramachandra and Pradeep 2009). The city is geographically located at 12°58 0 N latitude and 77°34 0 E longitude and situated on the Deccan plateau, at an altitude of 920 m above MSL. Bengaluru is witnessing tremendous growth in industry, trade and commerce leading to a rapid growth of the city and large-scale urbanization (2013). Urban vegetation and green spaces have a host of invaluable benefits, and knowledge about urban green infrastructure is extremely essential for maintaining the quality of life in cities, sub- urbs and fringes of metropolitan areas (Dimitrov et al. 2018; Ramachandra et al. 2014). Bengaluru, popularly known as the ‘Garden City of India’, has a huge niche area for vegetation cover in the form of large number of parks of various sizes, numerous lakes and dense vegetation in some & Shivam Trivedi shivamtrivedi@nrsc.gov.in K. Ganesha Raj ganeshraj@nrsc.gov.in K. S. Ramesh ramesh_ks@nrsc.gov.in R. Sudha ravindranath_s@nrsc.gov.in S. Rama Subramoniam ramasubramoniam_s@nrsc.gov.in H. M. Ravishankar ravishankar_hm@nrsc.gov.in A. Vidya vidya_a@nrsc.gov.in 1 Regional Remote Sensing Centre-South, National Remote Sensing Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation, Karthik Nagar, Marathahalli, Bengaluru 560037, India 123 Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-020-01259-5