International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology (IJCIET)

Volume 9, Issue 13, December 2018, pp. 1201–1210, Article ID: IJCIET_09_13_123
Available online at http://www.iaeme.com/ijciet/issues.asp?JType=IJCIET&VType=9&IType=13
ISSN Print: 0976-6308 and ISSN Online: 0976-6316

©IAEME Publication Scopus Indexed

LAND USE / LANDCOVER MAPPING AND

SUSTAINABILITY ANALYSIS OF CHENNAI
CITY, TAMILNADU, INDIA
N. Vaani
Assistant Professor (Sr.), Centre for Disaster Mitigation and Management (CDMM),
VIT, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India

Aditya Anand
Student, B.Tech- Civil Engineering, School of Civil and Chemical Engineering (SCALE),
VIT, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India.
ABSTRACT
With the growing trend of population and migration of people from rural to urban
area, the cities of nation are becoming overcrowded. To manage the needs of people
and also to safeguard the resources available, the planners and policy makers need to
have a current landuse map of any city or town. The present study focuses on the
preparation of landuse map of Chennai, the capital city of Tamilnadu. As the growth
of the city is fast and uncontrollable, it would be well prudent if the landuse map of
present-day city has been prepared. Though there are wide sources like Global
Landcover Facility (GLCF) are available to get free satellite images and many studies
have been carried out by preparation of landuse/landcover map from them, the
attempt has been made to prepare landuse map from the very prominent web map
service render by Google Earth images. The extraction of image tiles from Google
Earth is made possible using an open source software named Elshayal Smart. The
whole Chennai city could be covered using 735 individual tiles of Google earth
images. After mosaicking and clipping the required city bound, onscreen digitization
of various landuses/landcovers was done using ArcGIS software. The establishment of
topology and hence the area of various classes were then obtained. The area occupied
by built-up area is 126.58 sq.km, which is the highest as compared to other landcover
classes like agricultural area (16.44 sq.km), open land (12.80 sq.km) and water bodies
(07.19 sq.km). The results of landuse/landcover analysis of various zones of Chennai
city would facilitate the city planners to maintain sustainable growth.
Key words: Land use/ Land cover mapping, Sustainable growth, Geographic
Information Systems (GIS), Elshayal Smart, Google Earth images
Cite this Article: N. Vaani, Aditya Anand, Land Use / Landcover Mapping and
Sustainability Analysis of Chennai City, Tamilnadu, India, International Journal of
Civil Engineering and Technology (IJCIET) 9(13), 2018, pp. 1201–1210.
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 Land Use / Landcover Mapping and Sustainability Analysis of Chennai City, Tamilnadu, India

1. INTRODUCTION
As given by Rio declaration, people of any country are eligible to lead a healthy and
productive life in harmony with nature [1]. But, due to fast urbanization in many of the
metropolitan cities of the world, the sustained lifestyle of people is getting badly affected. The
scarcity of land and water and hence the shortage of food production and drinking water are
the major concern due to unplanned growth of a city. The forecast for four decadal period
from 2010 to 2050 says that the urban population will rise by 80 percent i.e., from 3.5 billion
in 2010 to 6.3 billion in 2050 [2]. This two-fold increase within the short period will have
great impact on the future demand for food and water. In this worsening condition, where
more people are moving to cities for better job opportunities, it is the responsibility of urban
planners to make smart decisions by smart planning for the growth of city. Fifty percentage of
the total population in Tamilnadu are living in major cities of the state, which is next highest
to Maharashtra and Gujarat in India [3]. Any further prolongation of this scenario will cause
reduction in agricultural land, congested habitats, deforestation, issues in distribution of water
and traffic irregularities, sewage treatment problems, air and noise pollution etc. To manage
the city growth and to maintain the sanity of the city, the effective tool that the planners can
rely on is accurate and recent urban landuse information for carrying out various activities in
urban planning and management. The landuse map is proved to be an efficient tool in
preparation of master plan, distribution of the basic amenities, proposal of any urban
infrastructure and planning of smart cities. The other research areas involving landuse
mapping are study of changes that have occurred in the landuse over the past years, urban
sprawl pattern analysis, prediction of future landuse, changes etc. In recent years, the
conventional use of field survey methods is obsolete and the effective use of satellite data for
the preparation of urban landuse maps are in practice. The advancement in geospatial industry
and the satellite data availability enable the process in a much appreciable way. There are
plenty of studies in which the landuse mapping from the muti temporal satellite images using
image classification techniques has been done [4,5].
The satellite images can now be downloaded from varied web data sources like the most
familiar one of global landcover facility (GLCF). This present study uses the images
downloaded from Google Earth using the software named Elshayal Smart, which is freely
available. While other data services compromise either on the resolution or on the latest data
availability, Google Earth surprisingly gives both at its best. The data security concern of few
places could also be overcome as Google Earth brings even some wacky places into light. The
most beautiful and amazing landscape view at very good resolution makes the choice of data
source as perfect.
The present study area is Chennai, the capital city of Tamilnadu, India. In 2011, according
to census of India, Chennai city was ranked as the fifth-largest city and fourth populous urban
agglomeration in India. The urban area of Chennai has increased from 1.46 to 18.55% in two
decades (1991 – 2012), the vegetation cover has reduced by 22% during this period. [6,8] The
fast growth of the city in an unplanned manner has its impact on the social, political,
economic and ecological landscapes of cities. India’s urban population has increased by 91
million between 2001 and 2011 [7]. The intense development of Chennai city in the outskirts
results in surrounding peri urban areas which lack basic amenities [8].

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 N. Vaani, Aditya Anand

Figure 1 Map showing the study area

Landuse map preparation for such a very fast-growing city would be a key tool to bring
sustainability. The taluk wise analysis gives the planners a clear idea to help future growth of
the city. Since Chennai in Tamilnadu is one of the 109 cities selected for the recent smart city
project [9], the implementation of the same can be made efficiently using the prepared land
use map of the city.

2. DATA COLLECTION AND EXTRACTION

The complete image of the study area in the year 2017 was extracted from Google Earth,
a virtual mapping environment where the earth's surface features are mapped by overlaying
various satellite images, aerial photographs using geographic information system (GIS). The
perpendicular or oblique view of all earth surface features and buildings can be obtained using
Google Earth. The images of Google Earth have varied resolution. Two dimensional images
are mostly seen for many places. Three dimensional images are also available for few places.
But, using Digital Elevation Model (DEM), 3D view of entire earth is made possible.
Elshayal Smart, an open source GIS software developed by a team of GIS programmers
from Africa, Arab and Egypt was used to extract georeferenced images from Google Earth.
The tiles of georeferenced images in a desired zoom level from Google Earth have been
downloaded using the Elshayal Smart software. The software enables selection of the adjacent
tiles for extraction depending on the user requirement as either top or bottom, left or right of
previous extracted image tile. As the extracted images are having coordinate information, the
further processing and analysis of the data is also made easy.

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 Land Use / Landcover Mapping and Sustainability Analysis of Chennai City, Tamilnadu, India

Figure 2 A sample single image tile of study area extracted from Google Earth using Elshayal Smart.

3. IMAGE MOSAICKING AND GIS ANALYSIS

The entire study area is covered by total of 735 image tiles. Those image tiles were extracted
from Google Earth using Elshayal Smart. All the individual images were then mosaicked to
form one single image in ArcGIS 10.2. It is then converted from geographic coordinate
system to projected coordinate system using Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM)
projection. The image falling within the district boundary was clipped using the digitized
boundary map of Chennai. The final image of Chennai district is shown in fig.3

4. PREPARATION OF LANDUSE/LANDCOVER MAP

The onscreen digitization of various landuse classes were then performed using ArcGIS 10.2
to prepare the landuse/landcover map. The various classes that were considered in the present
study are built-up area, open land, water bodies and agricultural area. The landuse class field
was added to the layer and the attributes were given appropriately. The area of various classes
were obtained by generating topology. The thematic map showing landuse/landcover classes
in Chennai is shown in fig.4.

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 N. Vaani, Aditya Anand

Figure 3 The complete image of study area after mosaicking

Figure 4 The landuse map of Chennai, Tamilnadu.

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 Land Use / Landcover Mapping and Sustainability Analysis of Chennai City, Tamilnadu, India

Figure 5 Taluk map of Chennai, Tamilnadu.

6. REGIONAL LANDUSE ANALYSIS

The development of urban areas is monitored and managed by respective taluk administration
whereas in rural areas, the same is managed by panchayat unions. The fast development of the
Chennai city keeps the development authority to pay attention as the irrational landuse will
lead to chaotic growth in the urban lanndscape. In order to have a balanced regional
development, the study of region wise landuse distribution becomes essential. The extent of
Chennai district being 176 km2 has ten taluks namely Tondiarpet, Purasaiwalkam, Perambur,
Ayanavaram, Egmore, Aminjikarai, Mylapore, Velachery, Mambalam and Guindy. There are
around 55 revenue villages in ten taluks.
The taluk map drawn to the scale was downloaded and then georeferenced. It was then
digitized and names of taluks were added in the attribute table. The topology was also
generated. The taluk map of Chennai is shown in fig.5. The landcover map and taluk map are
then joined together so that the attributes of both the maps are joined based on the locations.
The field calculator enables the calculation of area under different landuse classes in every
taluk. The percentage of area was then found based on the total area of every taluk.

7. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

As per the table 1, the area occupied by built-up area is 126.58 sq.km, which is very high as
compared to other landuse classes. Next to built-up area, agricultural area occupies an area of
16.44 sq.km. The total area covered by the open land and water bodies were 12.80 sq.km and
07.19 sq.km respectively. As per World Health organization (WHO), the minimum
requirement of open green space per capita in any urban systems is 9 m2 [10]. However, in
developed countries, they follow the standard for open space as 20 m2 per capita. As per 2001

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 N. Vaani, Aditya Anand

census, Chennai district population is 46,46,732. The two-fold rise of estimated Chennai
district population in 2017 is 104,35,000. The availability of open space for 2001 population

Table 1 Percentage of area under various Landuse classes

Landuse Area (Sq.km) Percentage
Built-up area 126.58 73
Agricultural land 16.44 09
Open Land 12.80 07
Water Bodies 07.19 04
Road Network 07.87 05
Railway Network 03.17 02
itself is not found to be satisfactory as it is only 2.8 m2 per capita. Even after the
expansion of city limit in 2011, the agglomeration of population happens only where the
amenities exist. To reach the balance between Carbon dioxide and Oxygen and to bring
ecological balance of human well being, the current situation should have some constructive
modification in this worst scenario, the depletion of agricultural land and also water bodies to
make human settlement is the most despairing attitude found in the city.
2%
Built-up Area
4% 5%
Agricultural Area
7%

Open Land
9%

Water Bodies
73%

Road Network

Railway Network

Figure 6 Percentage of area under various landuse classes in Chennai city.

The percentage of land cover is being 77.65, 10.08, 07.85 and 04.42 for built-up area,
agricultural area, open land and water bodies respectively. The area occupied by road network
is 07.87 sq.km and railway network is 03.17 sq.km respectively.
As expected, agricultural area stands next to built-up area in terms of the area covered by
that class. In any municipal corporation, generally the agricultural area would be very less or
nil because the land prices will usually be very high within corporation boundary which
would instigate the land owners to convert the agricultural lands to residential layouts. The
reduction in green cover would make the city as an urban heat island. The heat waves are
causing disastrous events like loss of human life, birds and wild life. So, the required green
cover for a sustainable city could be planned using the landcover map prepared.
Chennai has three rivers and many lakes spread across the city. Urbanization has led to
shrinkage of water bodies and wetlands. The quantity of wetlands in the city has decreased
from 650 to only 27 currently [11]. Adyar river basin has most of its area under vegetation
cover. The Chennai River Restoration trust set up by the government is working on the
restoration of Adyar river [12].

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 Land Use / Landcover Mapping and Sustainability Analysis of Chennai City, Tamilnadu, India

Figure 7 Pie charts showing percentage of area under various landuses in taluks of Chennai.
Built up area is more than sixty percentage in almost all the taluks except Guindy, the
industrial and institutional centre of the city. The ease of road and railway access to every
other region of the city from here decides the agglomeration of development even in the
outskirts of the city [13]. As the National park of Guindy is a protected reserve forest next to
snake park and zoo, found in the heart of the city in Guindy, the serenity of the place also
attracts people during week ends and other holidays. Mylapore Taluk has an unique historical
growth pattern without spoiling the mystical nature of this place since its origin. The posh
physiognomies of this place should be the main reason for the speculative growth of this
place. Mambalam, the commercial and residential taluk of Chennai has crossed its saturation
level of growth. Though there exists a great challenge about the tranquillity and sustainability,
the place is still known for its shopping attraction not only for local people but also for people
from other places of Tamil Nadu and tourists. Though the recent road and railway
infrastructure developments are found to be convivial for managing the edginess of the city,

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 N. Vaani, Aditya Anand

the quantity and quality of the resources, recent threats to disastrous events alarm for the
growth recess and need for ensuring sustainability.

8. CONCLUSIONS
Recent Landuse/Landcover map of rapidly growing urban centres are instrumental for
effective planning and management of the future developments in the city. The un planned
city growth is not going to affect only the human needs but also indulge the needs of various
other species on earth. Earlier it was noted that more than 100 migrant birds will be visiting
Chennai annually during October-March. But, ecologists reported that there is a huge drop in
number of migrant birds for past five years. They also specify that improper practices
followed due to rapid urbanization are the causes for reduction in biodiversity, which would
directly affect the balance in ecosystem. Environmentalist Foundation of India is a
volunteering group working towards wildlife conservation and habitat restoration [14]. They
can use this Landuse map for proper restoration of rivers and for wildlife conservation and
habitat restoration purpose. Also, proper drainage networks can be developed using land use
map in case the present network is inadequate. A blind network planning without paying heed
to land use map is not sustainable and can lead to displacement of people. The taluk wise
planning would help promoting infrastructure development and ensure smooth connectivity
within the city. The use of Google Earth images is proved to be effective for all levels of
classification as the tiles can also be extracted with minor details of the area by making zoom-
in. However, this study uses coarse classification level for landuse/landcover. While making
regional level analysis, fine classification would be much helpful for planners.

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[4] N.K.Lakshmi and N. Priti, Multi-temporal land use classification using hybrid approach,
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[5] Kamrul Islam, Mohammed Jashimuddin, Biswajit Nath, Tapan KumarNath, Land use
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[10] World Health Organization, Urban Planning, Environment and Health: From Evidence
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[11] The Hindu, Vanishing wetlands, 12 October 2015.

[12] The Economist, Next time by water, ISSN 0013-0613, 11 December 2015

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[14] The Hindu, Water security mission to watch out for city’s needs, 12 October 2015.

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