The Annals of Regional Science (2020) 65:67–82

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-020-00974-8

ORIGINAL PAPER

Estimating urban growth in peri‑urban areas and its

interrelationships with built‑up density using earth
observation datasets

Dipanwita Dutta1 · Atiqur Rahman2 · S. K. Paul3 · Arnab Kundu4

Received: 21 July 2019 / Accepted: 2 January 2020 / Published online: 31 January 2020
© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract
Understanding the complex nature of urban dynamics, especially in the fast-
growing cities of developing countries, has become crucial to the urban planners
and researchers. It is also relevant from the viewpoint of smart city projects as the
foundation of successful smart city lies in proper planning and urban growth analy-
sis. In this context, the present study attempts to assess the urban expansion and
land-change dynamics in and around Delhi. Multi-temporal Landsat data of 1977,
2003 and 2014 were used for analyzing the spatio-temporal pattern of built-up den-
sity, urban expansion, spatial change and their interrelationships. The annual urban
expansion index of the study area reveals that it was comparatively high in Delhi
National Capital Territory (NCT) during 1977–2003, but the expansion was much
higher in peri-urban centers in the later period. However, the growth was not hap-
pened homogeneously across the peri-urban zones; instead, it occurred around few
urban centers of peri-urban area. The annual urban expansion of Delhi NCT (2.52)
was significantly less than peri-urban centers like Gurgaon (6.19) in the period,
2003–2014. Since the areas with high built-up density have little or no space for
new settlement, the expansion of built-up area took place in the less dense areas.
The correlation between urban expansion index and annual rate of change in built-
up area shows that there is a good agreement and significant positive relationship
(r ≥ 0.62) present between them. A negative correlation (r ≥ 0.92) between built-up
density and urban expansion index indicates that areas with high built-up density
have less potentiality to expand and vice versa.

JEL Classification Q56 · R14

* Arnab Kundu
arnknd@gmail.com
Extended author information available on the last page of the article

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68 D. Dutta et al.

1 Introduction

The process of transformation and expansion in urban areas is a dynamic and

complicated socio-economic phenomenon that is interrelated with many natural
and anthropogenic factors among which demographic and economic aspects are
predominant. High population density and increasing trend of population growth
in developing countries are causing tremendous pressure on land. Urbanization
is inevitable, as urban centers are having modern infrastructural facilities with
increasing job opportunities. Except these pulling factors, many push factors are
also responsible for accelerated urbanization, especially in developing countries.
As an example, the lack of technological progress in agricultural sector, which
is a major constraint for net return from land, acts as a major fueling agent for
increasing rural to urban migration. As a consequence of such migration pattern,
urban areas are expanding horizontally and vertically. In megacities like Delhi,
large-scale migration from neighboring states plays a significant role in the popu-
lation dynamics of the city. With increasing job opportunities and educational
benefits, adjacent areas of the capital city have grown rapidly and acted as pulling
centers in recent decades. It is reflected in the population census reports of the
NCT region that the overall population density of Delhi has increased from 9340
to 11,297 persons per sq. km. during 2001–2011, which is highest as compared
to the national level and any other states and union territories of India (Census of
India 2001, 2011). This massive increase in population density certainly impacts
on land use and urban expansion of Delhi NCT. In order to cater this increasing
population, the city needs more spaces and infrastructure. In this circumstance,
conversion of land has been inevitable in the fast-growing cities like Delhi.
Urban expansion is being considered as a major topic of concern from the
viewpoint of sustainable development. It is one of the most important anthro-
pogenic activities, which are responsible for environmental change at local,
regional and global scales (Turner et al. 1990). Urban expansion is a dynamic
process resulted from rapid population growth, socio-economic development
and policies taken by administrators, whereas urban sprawls are resulted from
the loss of productive agricultural land, open green spaces, surface water bodies
and depletion of groundwater (Rahman et al. 2011). The study of urban dynam-
ics involves estimation of the spatio-temporal pattern of urban expansion and
land-cover change, which can be accomplished only through analyzing the satel-
lite images of different time periods.
With the emergence of remote sensing technique, the conventional process
of change detection has been replaced by digital and automated change detec-
tion (Haack and Rafter 2006; Rahman et al. 2012). The satellite-based spatial
change detection technique can extract the phenomena of changes at the pixel
level through comparing the multi-date satellite imageries (Singh 1989; Zhang
et al. 2002; Herold et al. 2003; Mallick et al. 2009; Schulz et al. 2010; Alam
et al. 2013; Dutta et al. 2015a, b; Dutta and Rahman 2017; Dutta et al. 2017).
One of the major utilities of remote sensing imagery is to estimate the changes

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Estimating urban growth in peri-urban areas and its… 69

occurring on earth surface as a result of continuous interaction of anthropogenic

activities with the natural environment. Owing to its ability to provide accu-
rate, timely and regular information on earth surface, geo-information technique
has been accepted as a reliable tool globally by the urban researchers, planners
and administrators (Li and Yeh 1998; Lambin et al. 2001; Herold et al. 2003;
Maktav and Erbek 2005; Elizabeth et al. 2008; Linard et al. 2013; Wang et al.
2015; Dutta 2016). Remote sensing with its ability to acquire information of the
earth surface in a repetitive way has become popular for studying urban dynam-
ics (Zhang et al. 2002; Jacobson 2014).
Although the researchers have put much effort in studying urban and rural
settlements, the peri-urban interface, which is the most dynamic zone between
urban and rural settlements, has not yet received any significant attention
(Sarkar and Bandyopadhyay 2013). According to Simon (2008), the peri-urban
interface of developing countries emerged mainly due to migration and haphaz-
ard pattern of urbanization. Understanding the spatio-temporal pattern of urban
expansion in those areas is important for proper planning and management.
The present study contributes to this area by assessing spatio-temporal pattern
of urban expansion in and around the capital city, Delhi, through geo-spatial
techniques. The main objective of this study is to analyze the pattern of urban
expansion by using three relevant indicators, like annual urban spatial expansion
index (AUSEI), built-up density index (BUDI) and annual built-up change index
(ABUCI), and to explore the interrelationships among those indices. Although
there are overwhelming number of studies on change detection of urban area,
only few researchers have studied these indicators of urban growth. The out-
comes would enable us to understand the spatio-temporal pattern of urban
expansion in the core city as well as its peri-urban areas and how this expansion
is interrelated with built-up density and its annual change.

2 Study area

The National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi and its peri-urban area have been
selected for the present study. The term ‘peri-urban’ indicates the rural–urban
fringe, which experiences continuous change as a result of rapid urbanization
(Douglas 2006). These are active areas with highly dynamic land use land covers
and have great potentiality to be an extended part of urban centers (Dutta et al.
2019). A 15-km buffer area from the existing administrative boundary of NCT
covering the surrounding peri-urban centers has chosen as peri-urban area of NCT.
Geographically, this area is situated at the heart of the Indian subcontinent extend-
ing between 28° 16′ 10″ N to 29° 0′ 52″ N latitude and 76° 48′ 36″ E to 77° 30′ 9″
E longitude. This area contains part of Sonepat, Jhajjar, Gurgaon and Faridabad
districts of Haryana, and part of Gautam Buddha Nagar, Ghaziabad and Baghpat
districts of Uttar Pradesh. The NCT of Delhi is having a total area of 1483 km2,
whereas the peri-urban of NCT (15 km) covers 2618 km2 area.

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70 D. Dutta et al.

3 Materials and methods

3.1 Datasets

The multispectral and multi-temporal satellite imageries have immense potentiality

in managing urban land use and land cover (Rahman et al. 2012). Long-term multi-
temporal Landsat datasets of 3 years, i.e., 1977, 2003 and 2014, collected from the
USGS Landsat archive were used in the present study (Table 1). The images were
selected considering the availability, quality of data and most importantly the acqui-
sition period to avoid the seasonal effects. The multi-temporal datasets of 1977,
2003 and 2014 are the product of three different sensors of Landsat satellite series,
i.e., Multispectral Scanner (MSS), Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+), Oper-
ational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), respectively. In
order to collect ground-truth information, the study area was surveyed with a GPS.

3.2 Methodology

In order to remove atmospheric noises, the raw satellite images collected from
the Landsat series were calibrated and corrected through FLAASH model. After
performing all preprocessing steps, the most informative bands were selected

Table 1  Satellite datasets used in the study

Sensors Spectral bands (μm) Spatial reso- Spectral region Date of acquisition
lution (m)

Landsat 2 MSS Band 1: 0.50–0.60 60 Green March 8, 1977

Band 2: 0.60–0.70 Red
Band 3: 0.70–0.80 Reflected IR
Band 4: 0.80–1.11
Landsat 7 ETM+ Band 1: 0.45-0.52 30 VNIR March 7, 2003
Band 2: 0.53–0.60
Band 3: 0.63–0.69
Band 4: 0.75–0.90
Band 5: 1.55–1.75 SWIR
Band 6: 10.4–12.5 60 TIR
Band 7: 2.09–2.35 30 SWIR
Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS Band 1: 0.45–0.52 30 Visible February 9, 2014
Band 2: 0.52–0.60 Visible
Band 3: 0.63–0.69 Visible
Band 4: 0.77–0.90 NIR
Band 5: 1.55–1.75 NIR
Band 6: 10.4–12.5 100 Thermal
Band 7: 2.09–2.35 60/30 Mid-IR
Band 8: 0.52–0.90 15 PAN

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Estimating urban growth in peri-urban areas and its… 71

through PCA. Then, these bands were used for classifying the multi-temporal
images of 1975, 2003 and 2014. The land-use/land-cover maps of these years
were prepared by applying support vector machine (SVM) classification algo-
rithm (Huang et al. 2002; Nemmour and Chibani 2006; Schneider 2012). Here,
major land use land covers including high-density and low-density built-up areas,
agricultural lands, water bodies, wastelands and vegetated areas were extracted.
Impervious surfaces like buildings, roads and concrete surfaces were considered
as built-up class. In order to check the performance of the classifier, the accuracy
of the output images was assessed through ground-based information. Finally,
the land-use/land-cover maps of the aforesaid years were used for analyzing the
spatio-temporal pattern of built-up density, urban expansion and rate of change in
Delhi NCT and its peri-urban areas.

3.2.1 Built‑up density index (BUDI)

Built-up density is an important index for estimating the ratio between total built-up
area and total area of the spatial unit (Aljoufie 2012). Hence, this index is suitable
for estimating the amount of built-up area per unit of the total area. It is a useful
indicator for identifying the intensity of urbanization in an area. Here, the total area
of each ward and built-up area under each ward has been estimated for the years
1977, 2003 and 2014. With the growth of urban area, the ratio has been changed,
and as a consequence, the density of built-up area has increased. This index identi-
fies the areas with new development as well as the pattern and direction of urban
growth (Eq. 1).
Total built up area
Built-up Density = (1)
Total area of ward

3.2.2 Annual urban spatial expansion index (AUSEI)

A simple change detection of satellite imagery can estimate the amount of area con-
verted into built-up land, but it does not show the spatio-temporal variation of the
rate at which this change has happened. In order to identify the spatio-temporal vari-
ation of urban expansion in Delhi and its peri-urban area, the annual urban spatial
expansion index has been adopted. This index is useful for analyzing the temporal
change in urban area in terms of its annual urban growth rate as well annual spatial
growth (Fan et al. 2009; Tian et al. 2005), and it can be expressed as follows (Eq. 3):
( )
Ut − Ut0 ∕Ut
AUSEI = ∗ 100 (2)
t−t0
where AUSEI is the annual urban spatial expansion index. Ut − Ut0 is the total urban
area in square kilometer at time t (final year) and time t0 (initial year). t − t0 is the
total number of years from time t (final year) to t0 (initial year).

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72 D. Dutta et al.

3.2.3 Annual built‑up change index (ABUCI)

The transformation of rural settlement into urban settlement leads to increase in

impermeable surfaces (Rahman et al. 2011). The rate of land-use change is cru-
cial for identifying the process of conversion related to development and growth of
urban area. Urban growth occurs by altering existing land use and land cover of an
area. Thus, change in built-up areas is interrelated with spatio-temporal growth of a
city. The annual change in built-up areas can reveal the spatio-temporal variation in
the process of land conversion, which is one of the driving forces of urban develop-
ment (Xie et al. 2005).
The annual change in built-up areas of Delhi and its peri-urban zone is estimated
by the following equation (Eq. 2):
( )
Ut − Ut0
ABUCI = ∗ 100 (3)
t−t0
where ABUCI is the annual built-up change index. Ut− Ut0 is the total urban area in
square kilometer at time t (final year) and time t0 (initial year). t − t0= Total number
of years from time t (final year) to t0 (initial year).
The spatio-temporal pattern of built-up density, annual urban expansion and
annual change in built-up area was estimated by interpolating the values of each
spatial unit. In peri-urban area, the index values were estimated for different dis-
tricts and three equidistance buffering zones. These buffering zones were derived
according to their distance from the outer boundary of NCT like 0–5 km, 5–10 km
and 10–15 km zones. Finally, the inverse distance-weighted (IDW) interpolation
technique was applied to identify the direction and spatial pattern of built-up den-
sity, rate of change in built-up area and urban expansion in and around Delhi NCT
region.

4 Results and discussion

4.1 Spatio‑temporal pattern of built‑up density

In order to identify the density of urbanized area and its spatio-temporal varia-
tion, built-up density of each spatial unit within and outside Delhi NCT was esti-
mated. The built-up density of Delhi and its surrounding area reveals that most
of the areas except the core of the NCT were less dense in 1977 (Fig. 2a and
Table 2). Few wards of old Delhi, especially Chandni Chowk, Daryaganj, Bazar
Sitaram, Qadam Sharif, and areas near New Delhi station like Paharganj were
found highly dense. Among the districts of peri-urban areas, the built-up density
of Ghaziabad was highest. During this time, as a whole the NCT and its sur-
rounding areas were comparatively less populated, and thus, the average built-
up density was not much higher (0.03). But it is noteworthy that the core of the
city was very much populated with higher built-up density (0.39). The highest

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Estimating urban growth in peri-urban areas and its… 73

Table 2  Built-up density statistics in Delhi NCT and its peri-urban areas
Year Built-up area (­ km2) Built-up density (Delhi Built-up area ­(km2) Built-up density (Peri-
NCT) urban)
Min Max Avg SD Min Max Avg SD

1977 187.21 0.00 1.00 0.39 0.28 73.79 0.01 0.06 0.03 0.02
2003 507.72 0.06 1.00 0.68 0.24 342.45 0.03 0.20 0.13 0.07
2014 701.94 0.19 1.00 0.75 0.21 773.46 0.08 0.43 0.28 0.12

Table 3  Built-up density in Delhi and its peri-urban areas (1977, 2003 and 2014)
Name Total area ­(km2) Urban area ­(km2) Built-up density
1977 2003 2014 1977 2003 2014

Delhi NCT 1479.84 187.21 507.72 701.94 0.13 0.34 0.47

Gurgaon 612.06 4.05 73.57 230.93 0.01 0.12 0.38
Faridabad 449.27 18.87 78.02 148.09 0.04 0.17 0.33
Gautam Buddha Nagar 353.57 18.45 71.90 150.36 0.05 0.20 0.43
Ghaziabad 339.07 20.14 66.95 107.91 0.06 0.20 0.32
Baghpat 267.02 2.10 6.68 22.37 0.01 0.03 0.08
Sonepat 456.29 7.08 28.22 73.68 0.02 0.06 0.16
Jhajjar 140.82 3.08 17.11 40.13 0.02 0.12 0.28
Peri-urban (0–5 km) 940.27 33.52 176.93 353.43 0.04 0.19 0.38
Peri-urban (5–10 km) 812.62 24.18 99.25 234.05 0.03 0.12 0.29
Peri-urban (10–15 km) 865.38 16.09 66.28 186.00 0.02 0.08 0.21

built-up density can be observed in the first zone extending up to 5 km from the
outer boundary of Delhi NCT (Table 3). A decreasing trend in built-up density
was found in the buffering zones of the peri-urban area with the increasing dis-
tance from the NCT outer boundary.
It can be observed from the built-up density map of 2003 that areas with high
built-up density were not confined in the central part rather these areas expanded
toward west, east and south (Fig. 2a). During the period 1977–2003, population
density of these areas raised due to economic growth and increasing job oppor-
tunity. After 1990s, there was a significant change in the economic growth rate,
which fueled the rate of migration from rural areas to the NCT region. Several
wards like Dabri, Pitampura, Rithala, Gokulpur, Sultanpur Majra, Mustafabad,
Rohini, Yamuna Vihar, Malviya Nagar, etc., experienced a remarkable increase in
built-up density during that period.
The districts of peri-urban area, especially Gautam Buddha Nagar, Ghaziabad,
Faridabad and Gurgaon, depict distinct increase in built-up density (Fig. 2a). It
is also noteworthy that the first buffering zone of peri-urban area (0–5 km) expe-
rienced almost five times increase in built-up density (Table 3). The estimated

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74 D. Dutta et al.

density of this zone was only 0.04 in 1977, whereas it was increased into 0.19
in 2003. Although the density of the remaining zones was increased during this
period, it was not much significant.
The built-up density map of 2014 (Fig. 2a) depicts that areas under high and
moderate densities have expanded and the density of the wards surrounding the
central region has remarkably increased. However, the districts of peri-urban region
were having higher built-up density than the previous years. It can be observed that
built-up density of Gurgaon was significantly high in these districts. The estimated
built-up density of Gurgaon was three times higher than the previous year 2003
(Table 3). Also, Faridabad and Gautam Buddha Nagar were having high built-up
density in 2014. While comparing the peri-urban areas according to distance zone,
it was found that built-up density was highest in the first zone and all these zones
experienced two to three times increase from their previous values. It is notewor-
thy that the built-up areas in the peri-urban region have expanded and the growth
was much higher than the NCT region. During the period 2003–2014, few growth
centers like Gurgaon, Noida expanded rapidly due to the development of informa-
tion technology sector and increasing job opportunity. Several apartments and hous-
ing complexes have mushroomed in these areas during the period which caused the
increasing density of built-up area over there.

4.2 Annual urban spatial expansion index (AUSEI)

The AUSEI is a useful index for identifying the spatial pattern of urban expansion
during a particular time period. It can be observed that urban expansion index was
lowest in the central part of the NCT during 1977–2003 (Fig. 2b). Highest urban
expansion was found in the wards of Chattarpur, followed by Roshanpura, Rithala,
Madhupur, etc., which are mainly located adjacent to the core part of NCT. On an
average, the estimated value of urban expansion index was 1.86 in Delhi NCT in
1977–2003. Although the maximum rate of urban expansion increased notably dur-
ing the later period, the average value was much lesser than 1977–2003 (Table 4).
The core part of Delhi NCT could not been expanded due to the lack of avail-
able land; hence, the AUSEI was less than 0.5 in the wards of the core part. The
AUSEI of Chandni Chowk was found almost zero. However, few wards located at
the bounding zone of NCT like Bawana, Bijwasan, Alipur, Chattarpur, Isapur, etc.,
experienced high expansion during 2003–2014. Except these wards, most of the
areas have not experienced notable urban expansion, and as a result, the average
AUSEI of 2003–2014 was decreased (Fig. 2b).

Table 4  Annual urban spatial Year AUSEI (Delhi NCT) AUSEI (peri-urban)
expansion index statistics
Min Max Avg SD Min Max Avg SD

1977–2003 0.00 3.71 1.86 1.10 2.64 3.63 2.97 0.34

2003–2014 0.00 6.05 1.22 1.29 3.45 6.37 5.13 1.05
1977–2014 0.00 2.67 1.43 0.78 2.20 2.66 2.42 0.14

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Estimating urban growth in peri-urban areas and its… 75

After comparing the maps (Fig. 2b) of 1977–2003 and 2003–2014, it was found
that AUSEI of Delhi NCT has been decreased (areas shown by blue color) with
time, whereas it was vice versa in case of peri-urban areas (high intensity of red
color). The study reveals that minimum AUSEI value was higher in the peri-urban
area during both time periods (Table 4). Although the maximum value (3.63) was
quite less than NCT (3.71) in 1977–2003, the average AUSEI was much higher in
the peri-urban areas. The AUSEI of peri-urban area shows a sharp increase during
2003–2014, especially in the districts of Gurgaon, Baghpat and Sonepat (Table 4).
The average AUSEI of peri-urban area was more than four times higher than the
NCT region in that period.
Another interesting fact was revealed while estimating the AUSEI for three zones
of peri-urban area. It was revealed that AUSEI of peri-urban zones slowly decreased
with increasing distance from the NCT boundary during 1977–2003, whereas it was
reverse during the later period 2003–2014 (Table 5). The high AUSEI in peri-urban
areas of Delhi NCT proves massive growth in built-up class during 2003–2014
which was mainly caused by overall economical progress, establishment of new
industries and most importantly lack of potential land for new settlements in the
NCT region. It is also noteworthy that the growth was not happened homogene-
ously throughout the peri-urban areas; instead, it occurred around few urban centers
of peri-urban area. During 1977–2003, the growth of built-up areas in peri-urban
zones was remarkably higher toward the NCT boundary due to available resources
and pulling factors of the NCT region. The outer zones of peri-urban area had not

Table 5  Annual built-up change and annual urban spatial expansion index in Delhi NCT and peri-urban
areas
Name Annual built-up change (%) Annual urban spatial expansion index
(1977–2003) (2003–2014) (1977–2014) (1977–2003) (2003–2014) (1977–2014)

Delhi NCT 8.56 12.26 9.66 2.43 2.52 1.98

Gurgaon 267.39 1430.54 613.19 3.63 6.19 2.66
Faridabad 227.48 636.98 349.23 2.92 4.30 2.36
Gautam Bud- 205.56 713.24 356.49 2.86 4.74 2.37
dha Nagar
Ghaziabad 180.02 372.38 237.21 2.69 3.45 2.20
Baghpat 17.62 142.59 54.77 2.64 6.07 2.45
Sonepat 81.28 413.28 179.98 2.88 5.61 2.44
Jhajjar 53.96 209.24 100.13 3.15 5.21 2.50
Peri-urban 551.58 1604.56 864.63 3.12 4.54 2.45
zone
(0–5 km)
Peri-urban 288.73 1225.40 567.20 2.91 5.24 2.42
zone
(5–10 km)
Peri-urban 193.04 1088.37 459.22 2.91 5.85 2.47
zone
(10–15 km)

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76 D. Dutta et al.

developed at that time. Later, these regions were remarkably developed with neces-
sary infrastructural facilities, services and urban amenities. As a result, the AUSEI
of peri-urban area was increased toward the outer zone and the third peri-urban zone
(10–15 km) obtained highest AUSEI value in 2003–2014.

4.3 Annual built‑up change index (ABUCI)

The annual rate of change in built-up area was estimated by calculating the total
built-up area under high- and low-density class in each year and detecting the
change happened during consecutive years. The pattern of annual change rate in
Delhi NCT and its peri-urban area reveals that as a whole the built-up areas of the
core of NCT have not experienced significant rate of annual built-up change dur-
ing the whole period, 1977–2014 (Fig. 2c), whereas the peri-urban districts, espe-
cially Gurgaon, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Faridabad and Ghaziabad, experienced
annual change at faster rate. It was found that the pattern of annual change rate in
peri-urban areas was mainly concentric and high rate of change was concentrated in
few urban centers of peri-urban area. There was a significant increase in the annual
rate of change in Gurgaon during 2003–2014 (Fig. 1c). The rate of annual built-
up change in Gurgaon was only 267.39% in 1977–2003, which was increased about
six times (1430.54%) in the later period, 2003–2014. This peri-urban center expe-
rienced the highest rate of change in built-up areas followed by Gautam Buddha
Nagar and Faridabad (Table 5).
It is evident from the study that peri-urban areas, especially Gurgaon and
Faridabad, experienced a real estate boom during 2003–2014 which fueled the
annual rate of change (Dutta et al. 2019). High-density built-up areas have expanded
rapidly over these places. In order to identify the distance-wise annual rate of change
in the peri-urban area, each equal-interval zones (0–5 km, 5–10 km and 10–15 km)
were analyzed. The areas near the NCT region changed much rapidly because of
better accessibility to the core area and other urban amenities. On the other hand,
the areas far from the boundary of NCT (10–15 km) have experienced a slower rate
of annual growth (Table 5) in all periods under study. It is evident that urbanization
occurs mainly due to conversion of agricultural, vegetation and other land-use and
land-cover classes. The areas outside the central part have plenty potential lands for
future development or expansion of urban areas. In contrast, the core areas are gen-
erally congested and there is no or little place for further development which caused
such spatial pattern of annual built-up change.

4.4 Interrelationship among built‑up density index (BUDI), annual urban spatial

expansion index (AUSEI) and annual built‑up change index (ABUCI)

It is noteworthy that peri-urban districts experienced a remarkable change in built-up

density between the years 2003–2014. Although Gautam Buddha Nagar (0.43) was
on top in 2014 followed by Gurgaon (0.38) and Faridabad (0.33), but the change was
extreme in Gurgaon district. The rate of annual built-up change and urban expan-
sion (Table 5) of these areas shows a good agreement with this finding. Few districts

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Estimating urban growth in peri-urban areas and its… 77

Fig. 1  Study region (Delhi and its peri-urban area)

like Baghpat, Sonepat, Jhajjar also experienced a notable change during 2003–2014
(Fig. 2b, c) though the rate of annual built-up change (Fig. 2c) was not significant
compared to the other peri-urban districts. Both annual built-up change and built-up
density show that first buffer zone (< 5 km) of peri-urban area experienced highest
built-up change and density compared to the other zones.

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78 D. Dutta et al.

Fig. 2  Spatio-temporal pattern of built-up density (a), annual urban spatial expansion (b) and annual
built-up change (c) (colour figure online)

In order to identify the interrelation among the indices, regression analysis was
carried out and correlation coefficients of each pair were estimated. The correlation
between urban expansion index and annual rate of change in built-up area shows that
there is a good agreement and significant positive relationship present between them
(Fig. 3a). The study reveals that the annual rate of change in built-up area is highly
dependent upon urban expansion as the areas with high AUSEI are having high rate
of annual change in built-up areas and vice versa. It is noteworthy that the correla-
tion was very strong in 2003–2014. The correlation between built-up density and
urban expansion index shows a very strong negative correlation with a significantly
high correlation coefficient (Fig. 3b). It can be observed that the obtained values of r
were 0.91, 0.86 and 0.95 for the respective time periods.

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Estimating urban growth in peri-urban areas and its… 79

Fig. 3  Interrelationships among urban expansion index and change in built-up area (a), built-up density
and urban expansion index (b), built-up density and change in built-up area (c)

It indicates that areas with high built-up density have not expanded much; the urban
expansion took place mostly in the areas with low built-up density. Since these areas
have not been fully developed and are having sufficient lands for potential growth, the
AUSEI has been comparatively higher over there. While comparing the interrelation-
ship between built-up density and annual rate of change in built-up area (Fig. 3c), a high
negative correlation was revealed between them. The estimated values of r were 0.60,
0.69 and 0.57, respectively, for 1977, 2003 and 2014. It was happened because there
were no significant changes in the areas with high built-up density and vice versa. The
high-density built-up areas were already congested, and there were no more places for
further development. In contrast, the availability of vacant lands made the low-density
built-up areas highly potential for conversion. The evaluation of land-use land-cover
dynamics in core and peri-urban areas is significant in developing smart cities, specifi-
cally in sustainable land-use planning. The information regarding spatio-temporal vari-
ation in urban growth must be considered for implementation of smart city agendas.

5 Conclusions

The study shows a distinct spatial and temporal variation in urban expansion and its
interrelationship with built-up density and annual built-up change. Built-up density
maps derived from multi-temporal satellite datasets indicate that built-up density

13
80 D. Dutta et al.

of Delhi NCT was comparatively higher than its peri-urban districts throughout
the period. However, the rate of increase in built-up density was more in few peri-
urban centers, specifically in Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida. While comparing different
zones of peri-urban areas, it was found that built-up density was highest in the first
zone (within 5 km). There was two to three times increase in built-up density dur-
ing 2003–2014 in all three zones. Among the peri-urban centers with high built-up
density, Gurgaon experienced more than three times growth (from 0.12 to 0.38) in
that period. It is noteworthy that the annual rate of change was significantly high in
Gurgaon than other peri-urban centers and wards of Delhi NCT due to better acces-
sibility to the core city, infrastructural facilities and job opportunities. The signifi-
cant positive correlation (r ≥ 0.62) between urban expansion index and annual rate
of change in built-up area proves a good agreement between them. The study also
shows that urban expansion was comparatively higher in the peri-urban zone due to
the availability of agrarian lands. However, the growth was not happened homoge-
neously across the peri-urban zones; instead, it occurred around few urban centers
of peri-urban area. The growth of built-up areas during 1977–2003 was mainly con-
fined in the first peri-urban zone due to better availability of infrastructural facili-
ties and pulling factors of NCT region. Later, the outer zones were developed, and
consequently, AUSEI of peri-urban area had increased toward the outer zone. It is
significant that highest AUSEI was found in the third peri-urban zone (10–15 km)
during 2003–2014. The strong negative correlation (r ≥ 92) between urban expan-
sion and built-up density proves that areas under peri-urban zone are having higher
potential to urban growth. The study also reveals a heterogeneous spatio-temporal
pattern in urban expansion of Delhi NCT and its peri-urban areas, which is strongly
interrelated with the pattern of built-up density and rate of built-up change.

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Affiliations

Dipanwita Dutta1 · Atiqur Rahman2 · S. K. Paul3 · Arnab Kundu4

Dipanwita Dutta
duttarsgisvu@gmail.com
Atiqur Rahman
arahman2@jmi.ac.in
S. K. Paul
skpaul@arp.iitkgp.ernet.in
1
Department of Remote Sensing and GIS, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore,
West Bengal 721102, India
2
Department of Geography, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Jamia Millia Islamia,
New Delhi 110025, India
3
Department of Architecture and Regional Planning, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur,
West Bengal 721302, India
4
Department of Geo‑Informatics, P.R.M.S. Mahavidyalaya, Bankura University, Bankura,
West Bengal 722150, India

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