Assessing Land Suitability for Managing Urban Growth: An Application Of GIS and RS

World is marching towards sustainable urban settlement and resource utilization has to be augmented. Land as a limited resource, needs to be utilized judiciously. Built density and urban fabric poses challenge to urban planner and decision maker, to plan the city in such a way that it will use land resource optimally. So this study aims to identify suitable land which has high potential to satisfy future urban needs of Surat regions a city in western part of India. Multispectral Image (LISS IV) is used to extract the Land cover map of city. From DEM, slope and elevation maps are generated. Land suitability analysis is carried out using weighted overlay tool of Geographic Information System (GIS) and weights are obtained by Analytical Hierarchy process(AHP) considering socio-economic, utilities, environment and physical as main criteria. Weightage has been given by experts in planning area and GIS environment. The result of this study shows that 82.93 sq.km (8.56%) area is very suitable, 128.84 sq.km (13.30%) is suitable, 749.82 sq.km (77.37%) is moderately suitable, 6.43 sq.km (0.66%) is less suitable and 1.07 sq.km (0.11%) is unsuitable for the future development. This study of land suitability can help the urban planner to regularize the proper zoning and to prepare the development plan as well as local plan. Also policy maker can use this map to form appropriate policy to cop up with blighted situation in urban area and to carry out sustainable planned development to achieve Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) announced by ministry of Urban Development.