Analysing Spatio-temporal Dynamics of Urban Sprawl, Evolving Pattern of Urban Landscape and Driving Forces of Urban Growth: A Case of Varanasi Planning Region, India

Urban sprawl is at the centre of contemporary urban debates and is very often criticised for its negative social and environmental externalities. Building on geo-spatial methodology and field observations, this study sets out to develop a holistic approach to understanding urban sprawl through a particular focus on a rapidly growing metropolitan urban agglomeration of northern India, that is, Varanasi. Following an analysis of principal urban growth modes through landscape expansion index and changing patterns of urban landscape through landscape metrics, this research refers to a geo-spatially grounded logistic regression model in order to shed light on the dynamic impact of multiple growth factors on the trajectory of urban sprawl in the study area. Moreover, in order to address the evolving nature of urban sprawl in Varanasi and its immediate surroundings this study focuses on a temporal span of 20 years, encompassing two consecutive decades of the 21st century (2001–2011 and 2011–2021). The research concludes by paving a platform for an amalgamation of the findings from different geo-spatial metrics as well as by corroborating the principal findings with the propositions of a number of contemporary hypotheses concerning the spatial growth of urbanised territories.