GEOSPATIAL DATABASE DEVELOPMENT FOR URBAN PLANNING USING

SATELLITE DATA UNDER GIS ENVIRONMENT

Anuj Bariar1 *, R.D. Gupta2, S.C. Prasad3

Department of Civil Engineering, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT), Allahabad-211004, U.P.,
India, (e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]).

KEY WORDS: Urban planning, GIS, Geospatial, Image processing, Database, GUI.

ABSTRACT:

Indian cities are experiencing an accelerated pace of growth since independence and are now emerging as centres of
domestic and international investments in an era of economic reforms, liberalisation and globalization. This has created
opportunities for technologists and planning professionals to guide and develop the process of planned development and
management utilizing modern technologies. The availability of high resolution data from remote sensing satellites has
revolutionized the process of thematic mapping and geospatial database creation, specially, in the context of urban and
regional planning. Further, Geographic Information System (GIS) has emerged as a powerful tool in integrating and
analyzing the various thematic layers along with attribute information to create and visualize various planning scenarios
for decision making. The increasing demands in urban planning and management sectors call for integrated application
of remote sensing and GIS for sustainable development of urban areas. The present work deals with the development of
geospatial database for urban planning of Allahabad city of Uttar Pradesh State in India through the use of satellite data
and other collateral data under GIS environment. IRS-1D LISS-III digital data has been used for the extraction and
analysis of the land utilization pattern of Allahabad city. The various thematic layers generated include land use pattern,
road network, water supply, solid waste disposal, soil map, ground water potential map, etc. and these have been
integrated with socio-economic and demographic data of the city to model the urban growth of the city.

1. INTRODUCTION maximised when systems of land use are well-matched to

the resources of a given area. The knowledge of spatial
Urbanisation is a form of metropolitan growth that is a distribution and behaviour of land resources is
response to complex sets of economic, social, and indispensable for making land management decisions for
political forces and to the physical geography of an area. a region. Land cover can be determined either by ground-
Urban planning is basically resource development, based survey or from remote sensing data. Urban land
resource management and resource generation exercise. environment represents one of the most challenging areas
The efficiency of urban settlements largely depends upon for remote sensing analysis due to high spatial and
how well they are planned, how economically they are spectral diversity of surface materials (Carleer and Wolff,
developed and how efficiently they are managed (Tiwari, 2006). Further, geospatial database design under GIS
2003). Development of local economies, and therefore environment is very important in the development of
urban expansion, is driven by a number of factors, planning support systems. However, the design
including transportation networks (land, water and air), methodology of spatial database hasn’t been developed
population increases (both in term of local birth rate and adequately in urban research compared with the
influx from other areas) and the amount of available land predictive modelling and simulation.
for developments (Markon, 2003).

The proper planning, design and management of urban 2. REMOTE SENSING FOR URBAN PLANNING
land use demands a careful balancing of many goals, viz.,
search for desirable land uses, effective and sustainable Considering the fact that natural resource assessment at
management practices, coupled with interactions among regional level are time-consuming, costly and often
the environment, economy and society. One of the main exceed practical possibilities, one of the important aims
reasons underlying the growing interest in multi-criteria of such activities is to efficiently study the geographical
analysis for land use management is the need for an patterns of land resources and to observe spatial
integrated approach to such complex problems. interactions and relationships among physical variables
from one place to other. This involves use of remotely
The urbanization may result in the loss of natural sensing techniques for continuous updating of the land
resources, open space and agricultural lands. The use/ land cover of the area of interest and for identifying
efficiency and sustainability of land management will be environmental constraints for the development of most
probable land use practices in that area. Further, the approach in urban development and monitoring process
potential land degradation can also be examined based on for implementing pragmatic plan of urban development.
the measured environmental variables, especially when a
particular land use type is to be adopted. These aspects GIS and remote sensing technologies have the
can be dealt with simultaneously also by establishing a capabilities to provide necessary physical input and
simple modelling framework within a standardized intelligence for preparation of base-maps, formulation of
system, whose procedure and outputs can be useful for planning proposals and to act as monitoring tool during
planning at a predefined scale (Baja et al., 2002). implementation phase of any urban planning scheme.
Thus, GIS and remote sensing are emerging as a powerful
The use of remote sensing techniques in the field of urban land related technologies for monitoring and management
development practices is very common because of some of land.
specific and useful features that can be summarized as:
• synoptic view of large areas;
• usable in inaccessible areas; 4. OBJECTIVES OF THE PRESENT WORK AND
• fast data acquisition; STUDY AREA
• making the invisible visible (spectral range);
• time-stamped coherent spatial information; The main objective of the present work is to develop a
• digital (semi) automatic processing possibilities. comprehensive geospatial database for urban planning for
Allahabad city of Uttar Pradesh State, India through the
Satellite remote sensing data is used to study and monitor use of satellite and other collateral data under GIS
land features, natural resources and dynamic effects of environment.
human activities on urban areas. A broad base map of the
city and adjacent regions indicating physical features may The city of Allahabad, taken as the study area for the
be prepared quickly with the help of satellite imageries. present work, is covered between 25°24´00?N to
Using the ground truth or interpretation key, the remote 25°32´00?N latitudes and 81°45´00?E to 81°55´00?E
sensing data is analysed, interpreted and maps related to longitudes. Total area of the city is about 97 km2 and the
existing features, land use, resource analysis, etc. could population of the city is 10,49,579 as per 2001 census
be generated. records. The maximum temperature is 46°C and
minimum temperature 1.1°C while the annual rainfall is
The information derived from remote sensing data has to 1935.5mm. The municipal area of Allahabad city is
be reliable and therefore must carry some sort of quality shown in Figure 1. The study area falls in Survey of India
label. The usefulness of this quality label is visible when (SOI) topographical maps 63G/14 and 63G/15 at
combining different data sets in a GIS or when using it as 1:50,000 scale.
input for different spatial models (Hagman, 1998).

3. ROLE OF GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

SYSTEM (GIS)

A GIS is an information system that is designed to work

with data referenced by geographic coordinates. A GIS
can be thought of a chain of operation for working with
spatial data, their storage and analysis to the use of the
derived information for some decision-making process.
GIS can play an extremely important role in resource
management, environment monitoring, land use and
planning activities (Xinhong and Hua, 1992).

Remote Sensing provides reliable, timely, accurate, and Figure1. Municipal Area of Allahabad City
periodic data while GIS provides various methods of
integration tools to create different planning scenarios for
decision making. Advances in GIS-based tools and 5. METHODOLOGY ADOPTED
databases have made it easier to construct and model the
urban pattern of an area (Gupta et al., 2001). At the same For the development of geospatial database for Allahabad
time, increasing concerns over the impacts of city, ArcGIS 8.3 GIS software has been used. The land
developments of urban patterns has forced planners to use/ land cover map has been prepared from IRS-1D
undertake efforts to consider and analyze land use from a LISS-III data of 2nd Dec. 2000 using digital image
regional perspective point of view. Hence, there is an processing techniques. The Erdas Imagine 8.5 software
urgent need to adopt remote sensing and GIS based has been used for this purpose. The spatial and non-
spatial databases have been created separately and then
linked together through the use of common identifiers coefficient comes out to be 0.86. The spatial extent of
under GIS environment. A computer program has been each land use/ land cover class has been given in Table 3.
developed in Visual Basic, implementing the ArcObjects
of ArcGIS to develop the menu driven Graphical User Table 3. Area of Land Use/ Land Cover Classes
Interface (GUI), incorporating the various elements of
S. Land Use/ Land Area Area
geospatial database. The development of GUI will make No. Cover Classes (in ha) (%)
geospatial database more user-friendly and interactive.
1 Urban/ built-up 2354.74 24.19
6. DEVELOPMENT OF GEOSPATIAL DATABASE 2 Vegetation 4645.80 47.72
3 Forest 1126.65 11.57
The details of thematic maps created along with their 4 Barren land 728.75 7.49
attributes for the development of geospatial database for 5 Water (Ganga) 325.77 3.35
Allahabad city are discussed under subsequent heads. 6 Water (Yamuna) 190.80 1.96
7 Sandy area 362.22 3.72
6.1 Creation of Spatial Database

Knowledge of spatial land cover information is essential 6.1.2 Road Network Map:
The road map of Allahabad city has been prepared from
for proper management, planning and monitoring of
City Development Plan 2001, obtained from Nagar
resources. An urban plan must incorporate an integrated
Nigam, Allahabad and updated by limited field surveys.
approach of spatial modelling using remote sensing and
The road network of Allahabad city has been divided in
GIS. This helps in evolving efficient and economical
two categories firstly, major roads, including the
models for development and location of industries,
highways crossing the city, and secondly streets,
education, housing, water supply, service facility and
comprising of the roads joining the internal habitations of
disposal system, etc.
the city.
6.1.1 Land Use/ Land Cover Map:
Land utilization pattern of Allahabad city has been
obtained by digitally processing the LISS-III image of
IRS-1D satellite acquired on 2nd December 2000 (Figure
2). In Allahabad city, seven land use/ land cover classes
have been delineated: urban/ built-up, vegetation,
forestland, barren land, sandy area, and water bodies. The
water bodies have been identified as river Ganga and
river Yamuna and classified accordingly. A spectral
based strategy with supervised classification was
undertaken with the assistance of visual analysis of a
displayed color composite. Ground data collection is
conducted to study land use patterns and characteristics in
relation to their spectral response pattern on the satellite
image. Ground data was necessary to select training areas Figure 4. Road Network Map of Allahabad City
before spectral based classification techniques were used
to derive thematic information. 6.1.3 Water Supply Map:
The water supply map along with the location of water
supply reservoir for Allahabad city has been prepared
from the data provided by the Jal Sansthan, Allahabad.

Figure 2. Land Use/ Land Cover Map of Allahabad City

The overall classification accuracy obtained for IRS-1D

LISS-III classified image is 88.00% and the Kappa Figure 5. Water Supply Map
 user (Burke, 2004). The ActiveX DLL project comprises
6.1.4 Solid Waste Disposal Map: of various modules, class modules and forms built to
The solid waste disposal map of Allahabad city has been complete GUI application for incorporation in ArcGIS.
prepared from the data obtained from the Nagar Nigam,
Allahabad. There are six disposal sites identified in the The GUI developed is menu driven and easy to use. It can
vicinity of Allahabad city, namely, Sulem Sarai, Kareli, be used easily by a person having basic computer skills
Naini, Alopi bagh, Chandpur salori and Phaphamau. but not possessing in-depth knowledge of GIS for
extracting the information as per the requirements of an
application. The main toolbar of the GUI developed in
the present work has been shown in Figure 7 which
highlights the use of the geospatial database.

Figure 7. Main Toolbar of GUI Developed

The developed GUI comprises of various menus and

buttons to incorporate the spatial and non-spatial database
which have been linked together. The GUI menu enlisting
the spatial database containing land use/ land cover map,
road network map, water supply map and solid waste
Figure 6. Solid Waste Disposal Map disposal map, etc. is shown in Figure 8.
6.1.4 Soil Map and Ground Water Potential Map:
The soil map and ground water potential map of
Allahabad city have also been generated for making the
spatial database more comprehensive.

6.2 Creation of Non-Spatial Database

The non-spatial database comprises of demographic and

socio-economic data which has been obtained from
Census 2001 and limited field visits. The non-spatial data
has been entered in tabular format.

6.3 Integrated Geospatial Database Figure 8. Spatial Database Menu of GUI

For the development of integrated geospatial database, Further, the developed GUI is integrated and
the spatial database has to be properly linked to non- implemented in ArcGIS, through the DLL file generated
spatial database through the use of common identifiers. in Visual Basic and is shown in Figure 9.
The various elements of spatial database have been
properly linked with their corresponding attributes. Thus,
the attribute data in tabular format has been integrated
with the city map of Allahabad by joining the tables with
thematic layers. The integrated geospatial database has
thus been generated for Allahabad city under GIS
environment.

7. DEVELOPMENT OF GRAPHICAL USER

INTERFACE (GUI)

An ActiveX DLL project in GIS has been created using

Visual Basic 6.0 and ArcObjects of ArcGIS software to
develop a menu driven application interface for planers
and decision-makers for accessing the geospatial database
in an interactive manner. The ArcObjects of ArcGIS
provide an infrastructure for application customization
that lets one to make user-specific and user-friendly
module framework to serve the specific needs of the end- Figure 9. GUI Implemented in ArcGIS
 8. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Burke, R., 2004, Getting Started with ArcObjects, ESRI
A GIS and remote sensing based geospatial database has Redlands, California, pp. 1-62.
been developed to assess, map and monitor the urban
land utilization pattern in Allahabad city. The geospatial Carleer, A.P. and E. Wolff, 2006, Urban Land Cover
database is modular and can be updated to accommodate Multi-level Region-based Classification of VHR Data by
additional information about the city in the form of new Selecting Relevant Features, International Journal of
thematic layers in future so as to make it more Remote Sensing, Vol. 27, No. 5-6, pp. 1035-1051.
comprehensive.
Gupta, R.D., P.K. Garg and M. Arora, 2001, A GIS Based
The GUI developed by incorporating the various Decision Support System for Developmental Planning in
components of geospatial database and implementing it Dehradun District, Indian Cartographer, Vol. 21.
under GIS environment will help the planners of
Allahabad city in making more informed decisions in the Hagman, F.A., 1998, Remote Sensing in Water
field of urban planning and management. The menu Management Practices, Proceedings of the 18th EARSeL
driven and user interactive GUI developed is expected to Symposium on Operational Remote Sensing for
increase the acceptability and utilization of integrated Sustainable Development, 11-14 May’ 1998, Enschede,
geospatial database among planners and decision makers. Netherlands, pp. 31-35.

The GIS based geospatial database framework developed Markon, Carl J., 2003, A Temporal Study of Urban
in the present work may be adopted for other urban cites Development for the Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska,
by making modifications in the input parameters. Geocarto International, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 21-33.

Tiwari, D.P., 2003, Remote Sensing and GIS for Efficient

Disclaimer Urban Planning, Conference Proceeding of Map Asia,
Trade and Product names are mentioned for completeness October 13 - 15, 2003, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
and no endorsement is intended by the authors or the
institute concerned. Xinhong, L. and Z. Hua, 1992, The Evaluation of Land
Use in a Selected Area in South of Gullin by using
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