International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 3, Issue 5, May 2013) 303 GIS Applications in Land Use and Land Development of a City R. Laxmana Reddy 1 , B. Apoorva 2 , S. Snigdha 3 , K. Spandana 4 1 Asst. Prof., CED, CBIT, Andhra Pradesh, India. 2,3,4 CED, CBIT, Andhra Pradesh, India. Abstract – Since liberalization was introduced in the year 1991, Indian cities have been experiencing an accelerated pace of growth. This has created opportunities for technocrats and planners alike to guide and develop the process of planned development and management of cities. Efficient urban information system is a vital pre-requisite for planned development as the ever increasing demands in urban planning and management call for co-ordinate application of Geographic Information System (GIS), for sustainable development of urban areas. The availability of satellite images from Google earth has revolutionized the process of thematic mapping and spatial data base creation, specially, in the context of urban and regional planning. Technologies such as GIS have emerged as a powerful tool in integrating and analyzing the various thematic layers along with attribute information to create various planning scenarios for decision making. The ability of GIS to store, manage and manipulate large amounts of spatial data provides urban planners with a powerful tool. This paper focuses on how GIS can be applied to establish, maintain, and analyze urban and land-use information for location and development of industries, educational institutions, housing, water supply, service facilities, sewer systems, etc. The present case study involves the suburbs of Boduppal and Pirzadiguda in Hyderabad city of the state of Andhra Pradesh in India. Keywords — GIS, GPS, Land Use, Land Development, Urban Planning, Sustainable Development. I. INTRODUCTION 1.1 What is GIS? GIS (Global Information System) is a computer based integrated database management system that stores a large volume of spatial data along with its attribute or non-spatial data which are captured, stored, retrieved, processed and analyzed to provide answers to queries of a geographical nature as and when required. GIS technology integrates common database operations such as query and statistical analysis with the unique visualization and the geographic analysis benefits offered by maps. These abilities distinguish GIS from other information systems and make it valuable to a wide range of public and private enterprises for explaining events, predicting outcomes and planning strategies. 1.2 GIS components The figure–1 below shows the various components of GIS. FIGURE – 1 1.3 Computer Hardware The general hardware component of a geographical information system is the computer or central processing unit. It is linked to a disk drive storage unit, which provides space for storing data and programs. A digitizer, scanner and other device is used to convert data from maps and documents into digital form and send them to computer. A digitizer board is a flat board used to vectorize any map object. A plotter or other kind of display device is used to present the result of the data processing and a tape device is used for storing data or programs on magnetic tape. 1.4 Computer Software The GIS software includes the programs and the user interface for driving the hardware. GIS software is essential to generate, store, analyze, manipulate and display geographic information or data. Good GIS software requires user friendliness, functionalities, compatibilities, updatability, documentation, cost effectiveness.