Land suitability along national highway : a case of Nagpur

Abstract

Urbanisation refers to the increasing number of people that live in urban areas. It predominantly results in the physical growth of urban areas, horizontally or vertically. This spread of urban character to the nearby areas depends on the growth potential of land. Urbanisation leads to higher proportion of population living in urban limits. This increases demand of land for residential, commercial landuses with social and physical infrastructure. Thus the physical growth of urban areas if not planned, develops in haphazard manner leading to Urban sprawl. "Freedom without discipline is chaos". In the same way discipline or regulations for expansion of urban land and its landuse is a must. To channelize and monitor the growth pattern of an urban area through limitations on urban sprawl raised the need for study. Nagpur city is selected for this study. The development of Nagpur city shows concentric growth of the city, though its growth trend effectively dominated south of the city. The Nagpur metropolitan area shows development of scattered urban sprawl pockets along the national highways. The study therefore focuses on land suitability along the part of the National highway no. 7. Limitation on random development or sprawl can be achieved through planned initiatives. In this particular case where the study area chosen is along the national highway, shows higher chances of sprawl in the form of ribbon development. Thus finding the land suitability and accordingly proposing a planned ribbon or linear development can be a solution. The study is limited to land suitability along national highway. The locational factors for landuses such as industrial, residential, commercial, agricultural uses are ranked according to their significance to the respective landuse. The land suitability for different landuses is analysed individually. Individual land suitability are then super imposed with the existing land cover (existing constraints), to find the land suitability along national highway in the chosen study area.The methodology of the study, thus evolved, will help decision makers and planners to determine land suitability along national highway. The study gives the land suitability proposal along national highway in the study area. This would serve as guideline for development along highways. Landuse proposal along the national highway in the form of linear development could be taken as further scope of study.