The Pattern of Urban Land-use Changes A Case Study of the Indian Cities Rupesh Gupta Abstract The impact of growth of cities in the change of urban environment especially in the study of land use and land cover change has drawn attention from scholars in the field of urban studies. This research is focused on a set of three growing cities of India, Gurgaon, Ranchi and Jaipur for the analyses of land use/ land cover changes for the periods of 25 years. The results show that the built-up land has increased, whereas the other categories of land have decreased. The findings would provide insight to the plan- ners and policymakers for the management of urban land in the field of growth related problems of the city regions. 城市土地利用模式的变化：以印度城市为例 城市增长对于城市环境变化的影响，特别是土地利用和土地覆盖变化的研究已经引起城市研究 领域学者的广泛关注。 本研究重点关注了印度三个发展中的城市（古尔冈、兰契和斋浦尔），分析了它们在二十五 年间土地利用/土地覆盖的变化。该结果表明，建设用地增加了，而其他类别的土地有所减 少。研究结果为规划师和决策者提供了对城市土地管理领域与城市增长有关的城市区域问题 的深入见解。 关键词：城市增长，遥感，地理信息系统，土地利用/土地覆盖变化，印度 Keywords Urban growth, RS, GIS, land use/land cover change, India Introduction Indian cities have witnessed rapid growth over the past two decades (Table 1). This growth has signifi- cantly changed the landscape of many cities. Metropolitan cities of India have been experiencing a lot of land-use and land-cover changes due to both socio-economic and natural factors. Managing urban popu- lation change will be one of the world’s most important challenges in the next few decades. Understanding the urban patterns, dynamic processes and their relationships is a primary objective in the urban research agenda with a wide consensus among scientists, resource managers and planners, Article Environment and Urbanization ASIA 5(1) 83–104 © 2014 National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) SAGE Publications Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC DOI: 10.1177/0975425314521539 http://eua.sagepub.com