Land Use/Land Cover Change Detection Analysis Using Remote Sensing and GIS of Jaipur District, India

Rapid urbanization is reshaping land use and land cover (LULC) across many Indian cities and complicates sustainable urban planning. Jaipur, one of the fastest-growing cities of Rajasthan, has expanded considerably over recent decades, altering both its natural and built environments. This study examines the spatio-temporal pattern of LULC change in the Jaipur urbanizable area using multi-temporal Landsat imagery. Images from 2000, 2009 and 2017 were classified with a supervised Maximum Likelihood algorithm into six classes: built-up area, bare soil/fallow land, agricultural cropped land, natural vegetation, water body, and bare rock/hill surface. Change was then quantified through post-classification comparison, change matrices and dynamic degree. Between 2000 and 2017, built-up area more than doubled (+111.86%) and bare soil/fallow land rose by 45.48%, while agricultural cropped land and natural vegetation fell by 57.65% and 32.41%, respectively, pointing to rapid urban sprawl and land transformation. Classification accuracy was assessed using confusion matrices, overall accuracy and the Kappa statistic based on GPS field data. The results underline the need for sustainable urban development strategies and effective land management policies to curb the environmental impacts of unregulated growth in Jaipur. The study shows that remote sensing combined with GIS is a dependable means of monitoring urban LULC change and offers useful guidance for planners and policymakers.