An Assessment of Changes the Land Use Land Cover and Impact of the It Park at Talwade Pune On the Nearby Villages

Abstract

The expansion of urban areas is common in metropolitan cities in India. Pune also has experienced rapid growth in the fringe areas of the city. This is mainly on account of the development of the Information Technology (IT) Parks. These IT Parks have been established in different parts of Pune city. They include Hinjewadi, Kharadi, Talwade and others like the IT parks in Magarpatta area. The IT part at Talwade is located to close to Pune Nashik Highway has had an impact on the villages located around it. The surrounding area includes the villages of Talwade, Chikhli, Nighoje, Mahalunge, Khalumbre and Sudumbre.

The changes in the land use that have occurred in areas surrounding Talwade IT parks during the last three decades have been studied by analyzing the LANDSAT images of different time periods. The satellite images of the 1992, 2001 and 2011 were analyzed to detect the temporal changes in the land use and land cover.

This paper attempts to study the changes in land use / land cover which has taken place in these villages in the last two decades. Such a study can be done effectively with the help of remote sensing and GIS techniques. The tertiary sector has experienced a rapid growth especially during the last decade near the IT Park. The occupation structure of these villages is also related to the changes due to the development of the IT Park.

The land use of study area has been analysed using the ground truth applied to the satellite images at decadal interval. Using the digital image processing techniques, the satellite images were then classified and land use / land cover maps were derived. The results show that the area under built-up land has increased by around 14 per cent in the last 20 years. On the contrary, the land under agriculture, barren, pasture has decreased significantly.