Changing urban land use and
its impact on the environment ( A Case Study Of Jaipur City )
Dr. K. N.
Joshi Fellow ( Associate Professor ) Institute of Development Studies 8-B,Jhanlana Institutional Area Jaipur-302 004 (India) E-mail:- knjoshi@idsj.org Fax:-91-141-2705 438 Phone (O)2705 726,706 457- ( R )2780 407 Dr C. R. Suthar Assistant Professor Department of Public Administration CSSH, M.L.Sukhadiya University,Udaipur Phone 91-294-2414 150 Abstract Land is always in a constant flux of continual change due to transformation resulting from either natural processes or human activities. Large scale of land transformation is presently witnessed in and around major cities of India. Some of these are very dynamic and rapid particularly in the urban fringe. The main factors affecting the urban fringe land transformation are growth of industrial, commercial and institutional activities. Secondly due to urbanization and increasing trend towards urban migration for employment and other developmental opportunity. This helps in spatial extension of urban areas engulfing particularly urban-rural fringe. The present study is aimed to bring out the temporal change of urban landuse and its impact on ecology and environment of Jaipur city by using remote sensing technique as well as conventional method. During the course of study a series of thematic maps covering ecological parameters and anthropogenic activities have been prepared to depict the changes and it’s impact on environment vis-à-vis landuse.The Jaipur city has experienced it’s expansion at the cost of peripheral agricultural land, quite often very fertile and productive. This process has resulted in the conversion of agricultural lands into non-agricultural uses. Apart from the diversion of lands for non-agricultural uses, the extensive damage to ecology and environment due to industrial waste, pollution, and misuse of land can also be seen in the urban areas and its periphery. One other important impact is noticed on the natural hydrological system of the city. As the urban areas spread the natural hydrological features like rivers, nallah, water bodies comes in the heart of the city.They are subjected to encroachment by the people. This results in either completely or partly block of the system.. Hence this process on one hand breaks the hydrological system and on other hand creates a permanent recurrent flood damage zone in the city area. Physical environment of Jaipur Jaipur is located on 26° 55’ north latitude and 75° 49’ east longitude. It’s muncipal boundary extends from 26 degree 46 minutes north latitude to 27 degree 01 minutes north latitude and 75 degree 37 minutes east longitude to 76 degree 57 minutes .east longitude. The city is surrounded by the Nahargarh hills in the north and Jhalana in the east, which is a part of Aravalli hills - ranges. To the south and the west of the city are also prevailing hillocks but they are isolated and discontinuous in formation. The southern end of the city is open to plain and stretches far and wide towards saganer and beyond. The walled city was originally located on the rocky street to provide an easy drainage system on either side of the city but the.future exertion of the city took place on the south and west on the alluvial plains formed in the confluence’s zone of the Amani Shah nala in the west and Jawahar Nagar nala in the east and beyond. Topography The general slope of the Jaipur city and its surroundings is from north to south and then to south-east. Nearly all the ephemeral streams flow in this direction. Higher elevations in the north exist in the form of low, flat-topped hills of Nahargarh (587 meters). Jaigarh, Amber and Amargarh, which are deeply dissected and eroded. An isolated hillock called “Moti Dungari” upon which an old royal castle exists, is near the Rajasthan University. Further in the south, topographical levels of the plain areas varies between 280 meters along Bandi and Dhund rivers in the south to som 530 meters in the north east of Chomu near Samod hills. The overall trend is a decline of level from the areas bordering the hills in the north to plain in the south slopes of the plain areas are in general gentle. Drainage The natural drainage of the Jaipur city is largely technically affected. It shows intense gully erosion particularly in the northern hilly region. Dhund river and Amanishah nala form a fork like drainage pattern in the confluence zone of which the major part of Jaipur city is situated. The Amanishah nala, which originates from the western slopes of Jaigarh hills, flows northwards in the upper reaches, turns south and south-west in its middle course and flows towards east with a broad semi-circle. Finally it joins river Dhund further down stream. There is another small drainage system in the north foothills which now a days discharges the city’s waste effluents into an artificially impounded lake called the Jal Mahal (Man Sagar). Jal Mahal lake is a large cesspool now of effluent waste water changing its profile from muddy water mixed with effluents and sludge during rainy season to a dried large puddle surrounded by parched earthen floor during summer seasons. Climate The Jaipur is located in the semi-Arid Zone of India. It has characterized by high temperature, low rainfall and mild winter. The mean temperature of Jaipur is 36 0 C varying from 18 0 C in winter (January) to 40 0 C in summer (June). Thus the January and June are the coldest and hotest months.. The normal rainfall of Jaipur is 600 mm; nearly 90 percent of which takes place in the summer monsoon period i.e. from June to September, the rest comes from the winter cyclones. Objective The overall objective of the study is to map the changes brought out by human activities particularly in the field of encroachments, unscientific land use , haphazard growth of colonies. The study aims to asses the negative and positive impact on environment due to changes in urban morphology and also suggestalternative strategy or lanes plan which would be able to solve the present environmental problem. METHODOLOGY The study is primarily based on Satellite Remote Sensing technique.The satellite data of the year 1975 ( Landsat MSS), 1986 (IRS – LISS II FCC) 1991 (IRS - LISS III FCC) have been used to draw informations onlanduse, geomorphology, geological features and hydrological features. maps. Other environmental parameters have been collected by on line departments. The satellite data have been analyzed using visual interpretation technique which was supported by ground truth surveys. The field surveys will be conducted in two phases i.e. reconnaissance survey and detailed survey for ground truth collection and.preparation of image interpretation key. A few sites will be further visited after interpretation of satellite data for final verification. Expansion of the Jaipur city In 1728 A.D. When the wall city of Jaipur was founded its total area was about 4.81 sq.km. By 1930-31 the limits of the municipal area further extended to the wall of city, and the total area reached to 9.6 sq.km. In1951 due to rapid increase in population the city area has been further expanded to 40 sq. km During 1964, with the increasing demand of population problems associated with urbanisation like living accommodation, traffic congestion, lack of sanitation and other amenities etc. there was a felt need of preparing a Master Plan of keeping the needs of the Jaipur city upto 1991. In 1965 a Master Plan of Jaipur city was prepared in 125 revenue village of surrounding areas of Jaipur city were brought in the urban boundary. The total area reached to 115 sq. km. In 1972 and addition 132 revenue villages have been inducted in the urban area and the total area reached upto 385 sq.km out of which 153 sq.km was the urbanisable area and rest was to develop green belt around Jaipur. In recent past in 1995 the Master Plan was revised targeting the need of the year 2011. An addition 6 towns and 342 revenue villages have been identified in included in the urban areas for city Planning purpose. Now the total geographical area of Jaipur city is spread in 1464 sq.km. Temporal change in Landuse As the urban population grow older and internal congestion increases, changes in the utilisation of land inevitably occur along with simultaneous changes in the social and economic structure. The most inevitable local change occurs in the horizontal growth of the town more especially in a peripheral direction. The peripheral zone though covers an extensive agricultural area having rural characteristics, yet it has very often included in the urban limits for the administrative reasons. Table – 1 reveals that to meet the residential demand of growing population the area under construction of houses, and social amenities has been increased by two times in last about three decades. In 1975 the area under residence was 10.58 percent of the total municipal area of Jaipur which has been increased to 20.62 percent in 1991. Similarly area under construction activities has also been increased by three times. This construction activities have a direct bearing on agricultural land. Because the topography of Jaipur city is such that the north and eastern part is covered y the hills and the west and southern part is plain which has a prime agricultural land. Hence no expansion is possible on the hills, therefore all the agricultural area is threatened by construction activities either for residential, commercial transportation or industrial purpose. Table-1 reveals that out of the total agricultural area available in the year 1975 was 251.58 sq.km(65.2%) has been engulfed y the concretization and it has been reduced to 150.78 sq.km (30.07%) in 1991.
Second important landuse category is forest. As the large area of Jaipur is surrounded by hills called Amer, Nahargarh and Jhalana It is desirable to have a good forest cover for healthy environment. They also a source of rivers and wild life. Fortunately due to awareness about the environment and alertness of the forest department the forest cover has shown increasing trend. The forest cover of Jaipur was 28.20 sq.km in 1975 which has been increased to 45.80 sq.km (11.89%) by 1991. This increase is also due to put bane on the mining activities in vicinity of Jaipur. Third landuse is the wasteland which has not shown significant decreasing trend. The total wasteland that includes sandy, gullied, saline, rocky and mining spoils was 18.06 sq.km (4.68%) in the year 1975 has only been reduced to 15.84 sq.km (4.10%) . The significant reduction can been seen in sandy area which was 3.76 percent in 1975 which has been reduced to 0.98 percent in 1991. This may be because of construction of housing colonies by Rajasthan Housing Board in the out Scurd areas. Fourth and important Urban Landuse is industrial area. For economic development urbanisation and industrialization go hand in had wherever potentialities exist, it is considered to be a good sign for the development of any city. Jaipur had and 34.98 sq.km (9.07%) area under industries in 1975 which has been increased to 44.34 sq.km (11.49%) by 1991. This is because of many industrial schemes have been announced by the government to promote the industrial activities in the state in general and Jaipur in particular. Impact of Landuse on Hydrological regime The hydrology of Jaipur is governed by physical characteristics of landscape and geology. The city is surrounded hills Intermountain valleys, pediments and sandy plains. In northern and eastern parts, the.Aravalli hill ranges, trending north, east-south, west alternating with intermountain valleys, constitute significant signatures of physiography. There are as man as 518 rivulets originates from these hill ranges out of them 398 are of its order, 92 second order, 25 third order and 3 are of 4 th order streams. In early stage the city expansion was restricted to food hills only and no drainage system was disturbed. But as the expansion took place, people started filling diverting and blocking the stream. At many places the natural streams were used to dump the garbage. As a result 150 streams out of which 113 1st order 37 second order and 10 are of third order stream are blocked or filled for the construction purpose due to expansion of Jaipur city. It has a directs bearing on the availability of surface as well as ground water. Now the water of these stream goes waste as a flood water in the street of urban areas or flows in the urban sewerage system. Simultaneously all the household of the new constructed colonies sewerage are opened in the natural drainage system, that causes the pollution of surface as well as ground water. Second important impact of the expansion of builtup area is seen in relation to hydro-geo-morphology. Most of the area, about 65 percent is covered by alluvial plain which is good for ground water probability and ground water recharge. Second largest area is under pediment and intermountain valleys which moderate from ground water point of view. Now it is clear from the table I that out of the total 65 percent alluvial area which was under agricultural Land has reduced to 39 percent this reduction has a negative impact on ground water. It is observed that the ground water of these area have also gone down by 5.97m in HCM Training institute, 1.69m in Jhotwara area, 1.81 m at Army Cant (study conducted by Rajasthan Ground water Board). Impact of Landuse on Agriculture Agriculture is the Primary occupation of the rural people. Prior to 1964 the wall city had hardly any agricultural area but from 1965 to 1972 about 256 village were merged in the urban boundary. Natural they had a very good agricultural practice because of good alluvial soil and water. But due to urbanisation all fertile land were occupied by the colonizer or industrialist. As a result the agricultural area and products have declined. If we look at the table. It seems hardly any change in the crop land but fallow land has been decreased a lot from 31.53 percent to 5.52 percent. But if we look at the geographical position of the crop land it has shifted from plain area to a dirty nallah or clean farms to sewerage farms. Now all agricultural activities in Jaipur municipal area is restricted to Armani shah Nallah which a large sewer drainage flowing from north of Jaipur to south in Sanganer and mearges in the Dhund river. The farmer take wheat, sugarcane, Barley an d all most all vegetables in winter and summer from this large nallah. It creates severe health hazards. Conclusion The continues change in the Urban landuse of a city is the utmost concern of urban planners and decision-makers. The rapid increase of urban population and the urbanisation leaders to an ever increasing demand on the urban environment. The unplanned expansion of cities and encroachments by people for various purposes pose serious problems to the environment and the people living in the area. Therefore it is very much necessary to monitor the landuse and its changes in periodical frame. Remote Sensing is the best technology which provides the periodical data with high resolution that can be used to defect the changes and also evaluate its negative and positive impact. By carry out this exercise one may remove the negative impact of landuse in the process of its change or may suggest some remedial measures. As far as the Jaipur city is concern a new master development plan – 2011 is in the process of implementation where in about 6 towns and 342 villages on the periphery of Jaipur will be mearged in the urban agglomerates. If remote sensing technique is used to monitor the changing landuse of new Jaipur agglomerates a lot of urban environmental problems will be solved in advance References
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