Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Exploring the lateral expansion dynamics of four metropolitan cities of India using DMSP/OLS night time image

  • Published:
Spatial Information Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Large Indian urban agglomerations like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai are expanding rapidly beyond their territorial limits. But census of India, the only source of official data related to urbanization in India is not capable of capturing rapid urban dynamic due to some loopholes of Census of India. DMSP/OLS night time image become an alternative source of data for urban growth monitoring using its capability of capturing emitted lights from different sources. A threshold-based approach is applied to eliminate non-urban light capturing pixels. Based on the threshold values of 31 urban areas of four megacities of India for 1992, 2001, 2011are extracted. Threshold-based DMSP/OLS night time image extracted urban areas of four megacities shows a rapid increase of urban areas in an around the megacities. Chennai and Mumbai show a declining trend from 1992–2001 to 2001–2011 time span whereas Delhi and Kolkata shows an increasing trend of urban areas from the same time period. Out of the four Indian megacities, Chennai shows the fastest growing megacities for both of this two time span. It is also found that Chennai and Delhi shows an urban area increase abound 60% in the 2001–2011 time span. Analysis of this study identifies the applicability of threshold-based approach for measuring the rapid urban growth of a big city using DMSP/OLS night time image which opens a new avenue for the urban researchers.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Denis, E. and Marius-Gnanou, K. (2011). Toward a better appraisal of urbanization in India. Cybergeo. doi:10.4000/cybergeo.24798.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Chand, T. R. K., Badrinath, K. V. S., Elvidge, C. D., & Tuttle, B. T. (2009). Spatial characterization of electrical power consumption patterns over India using temporal DMSP–OLS night-time satellite data. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 20(3), 647–661.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Taubenböck, H., Wegmann, M., Roth, A., Mehl, H., & Dech, S. (2009). Urbanization in India—Spatiotemporal analysis using remote sensing data. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 33(3), 179–188. doi:10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2008.09.003.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Stainberg, F. (1996). Conservation and rehabilitation of urban heritage in developing countries. Habitat International, 20(3), 463–475. doi:10.1016/0197-3975(96)00012-4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Rahman, A., Agarwal, S., & Sarkar, A. (2007). Monitoring urban sprawl using remote sensing and GIS techniques: Study of fast growing city, India. Epidemiology, 18(Suppl), S79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Kit, O., Lüdeke, M., & Reckien, D. (2012). Texture-based identification of urban slums in Hyderabad, India using remote sensing data. Applied Geography, 32(2), 660–667.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Bhatta, B., Saraswati, S., & Bandyopadhyay, D. (2010). Quantifying the degree-of-freedom, degree-of-sprawl, and degree-of-goodness of urban growth from remote sensing data. Applied Geography, 30(1), 96–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Elvidge, C. D., Baugh, K. E., Kihn, E. A., Kroehl, H. W., & Davis, E. R. (1997). Mapping city lights with nighttime data from the DMSP operational linescan system. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 63(6), 727–734.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Elvidge, C. D., Badrinath, K., Chand, T. R. K., & Tuttel, B. T. (2009). Spatial characterization of electrical power consumption patterns over India using temporal DMSP–OLS night-time satellite data. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 30(3), 647–661.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Baugh, E. K., Elvidge, C. D., Powel, R. L., Ghosh, T., Sutton, C. P., & Anderson, S. (2010). Shedding lights on the global distribution of economic activity. The Open Geography Journal, 3, 147–160.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Zhang, Q., & Seto, C. K. (2011). Mapping urbanization dynamics at regional and global scales using multi-temporal DMSP/OLS nighttime light data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 115(9), 2320–2329. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2011.04.032.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Henderson, M., Yeh, E. T., Gong, P., Elvidge, C., & Bauge, K. (2003). Validation of urban boundaries derived from global night-time satellite imagery. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 24(3), 595–609. doi:10.1080/01431160304982.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Cao, X., Chen, J., Imura, H., & Higashi, O. (2009). A SVM-based method to extract urban areas from DMSP–OLS and SPOT VGT data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 113(10), 2205–2209. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2009.06.001.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Pandey, B., Joshi, P. K., & Seto, C. K. (2013). Monitoring urbanization dynamics in India using DMSP/OLS night time lights and SPOT-VGT data. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 49, 49–61. doi:10.1016/j.jag.2012.11.005.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Liu, Z., He, C., Zhang, Q., Huang, Q., & Yang, Y. (2012). Extracting the dynamics of urban expansion in China using DMSP–OLS nighttime light data from 1992 to 2008. Landscape and Urban Planning, 106(1), 62–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Sridhar, K. S. (2010). Determinent of city growth and output in India. Review of Urban and Regional Development Studies, 22(1), 22–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Sridhar, K. S., Reddy, A. V., & Srinath, P. (2010). Is it puss or pull? Recent evidence from migration in India. South Asia Network of Economic Research Institutes, 10, 1–17.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Gour Banga, Maldah, West Bengal, India

    Sasanka Ghosh & Arijit Das

Authors
  1. Sasanka Ghosh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Arijit Das
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sasanka Ghosh.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ghosh, S., Das, A. Exploring the lateral expansion dynamics of four metropolitan cities of India using DMSP/OLS night time image. Spat. Inf. Res. 25, 779–789 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41324-017-0141-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41324-017-0141-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation