Vol.9 (2019) No. 1 ISSN: 2088-5334 Urban Sprawl Mapping and Land Use Change Detection Analysis M. Lenin Sundar #* , C.Arun Prasath # , H.Elstin Rosario # , K.Tamilselvan # # Department of Civil Engineering, Sri Krishna College of Technology, Coimbatore – 641042, Tamilnadu, India E-mail: * m.leninsundar@skct.edu.in; arunprasathcappa@gmail.com; elstinrosario1@gmail.com; smartworknicky@gmail.com Abstract—Hasty changes occurred in the land use and land cover of Coimbatore city corporation, Tamil Nadu within 32 years span (1984 – 2016). Agricultural and forest lands are mainly converted into urban areas generally in an unplanned way which is making a change in dynamics of urban sprawl characteristics. The principal aim of this study is to use remote sensing data, geospatial tools to detect, quantify, analyze the urban land use changes of Coimbatore city, located in the western part of the Tamil Nadu. This study emphases on urban growth analyses and urban sprawl of Coimbatore city. In 2016, the jurisdiction of the Coimbatore Corporation was increased from 72 to 100 wards and five zones which consist area of 365.74Sq.Km. The corporation limit was extended from 29.25Sq.Km. in 1984 to 365.74 Sq. Km. in 2016 which has a growth of 1150 percent area of 1984. Various GIS layers such as Ward, Zone, Corporation boundaries, Road and railway network, Waterbody, Stream, Major locations and Land use / land cover including built-up area; agricultural land; water bodies; industrial area; educational area, and Public & Semi-public area were generated from Coimbatore Corporation map and Remote sensing imagery. This study revealed that Land use/Land cover areas such as agricultural, commercial, educational, industrial, public and semi-public, residential areas and water bodies occupied 9.38, 2.20, 5.0, 3.1, 1.02, 77.37 and 1.93 percentage areas of the city respectively in the year 2016. Land use pattern change was confirmed by field verification study in some places like near Gandhipuram, Brooke Fields, Avinashi Road, etc. Keywords— remote sensing; GIS, urban sprawl; land use / land cover; change detection; coimbatore. I. INTRODUCTION The shape of Land use/Land Cover of an area is a result of natural and socio-economic factors and their utilization by human beings with time and space. The land is becoming a limited resource due to enormous agricultural and demographic pressure. So, information about land use / land cover and possible best usage of them is essential to plan for scarifying the increase in land demand of a city. These information may also assists in monitoring the dynamics of land use due to increase in population. Study of Land use and land cover change is useful for managing natural resources and monitoring environmental changes. Changes in land use and land cover over 13 years, i.e. between 1995 and 2008 in Kafur local government area of Katsina state, Nigeria was studied [1]. This study used a paired t-test analysis for change detection along with remote sensing and GIS techniques. The study has been done on land use, and land cover changes through remote sensing approach and GIS software using SOI taluk map of Kodaikanal and LANDSAT imageries of 2003 and 2008 [7]. An attempt is made to study the changes in land use and land cover using remote sensing approach using Land Sat imageries of October 1992 and November 2006 (14 years)in Indra river watershed [4]. This study revealed that the forest area was increased from 15.01 percent in 1992 to 25.57 percent in 2006. The study on urban sprawl and urban change of Salem Corporation for 1990 -2010was carried out using remote sensing and GIS [13]. It is found that the Old Suramangalam cluster or North West cluster extends from Andipatti to Burns colony. The Kalarampatti to NGGO colony / Chinnakollapatti extensions is the second cluster which occupies in the northeastern part of the corporation. Urban sprawl change for 1973-2009from the Land sat images of Vijayawada city was studied [11]. The satellite images of MSS (1973), TM (1990), ETM+ (2001, 2011) which are rectified and registered in Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) were obtained. Supervised classification of images was used for developing land use and land cover maps. Five land use classes had been identified such as urban (built-up), Waterbody, Agricultural land, Barren land, and Vegetation. Changes in land use were analyzed spatial and temporal changes in land use of forest, farming and settlement using satellite imagery Landsat TM 7 and 8 (resolution 30 m) that has been in the interpretation of 2004 to 2014 [2]. This study concluded that there had been a decline in the forest area of 128 ha (1.6%), an increase in the mixed-farming area of 146 281