Impact of Landuse Transformation on the Urban Green Spaces of the Aligarh City, Uttar Pradesh, India

With an increasing population and consequently growing urbanization, pressure on urban lands has increased tremendously. In recent times, urban areas have experienced tremendous transformation, with vacant and green lands being converted into built-up areas. The scenario has caused a crisis of per capita green space availability in major urban centers. In this paper, an attempt is made to examine the rate and pattern of LULC change and its impact on urban green spaces in Aligarh city. Satellite data has been used to fulfill the objectives of the study. Landsat imageries of 30m resolution, from the years 2000, 2011, and 2021, have been used to prepare the LULC map of Azamgarh city. The vegetation class of the classified imagery has been taken as green spaces and is further analyzed for per-capita green space availability and per unit area green space availability using standard methods. The results have revealed that the built-up area has increased vigorously over the years, swallowing up open green spaces in Aligarh city. Per capita green spaces and per unit green spaces availability were found pathetic in the city, which is detrimental to both the physical and mental health of the residing population as well as to the urban environmental quality.