Geospatial and machine learning techniques for spatiotemporal analyses of urban dynamics in the Coimbatore city, South India

Abstract

Rapid urbanization has drastically changed the land use and environmental conditions in Indian cities and need to be monitored continuously for sustainable urban planning. The study used Landsat satellite images of the years 2001, 2013 and 2023 to examine the spatiotemporal urban dynamics of the Coimbatore city of South India. The impacts of urban sprawl on the environment were evaluated from Land Use/ Land Cover (LULC), Land Surface Temperature (LST) and spectral indices (NDVI, NDWI and NDBI). The built-up land increased by 1.21% (2001–2013) and 1.67% (2013–2023) and agricultural land decreased by 1.62% (2013–2023). The LULC classification had an Overall Accuracy of 95.76% with a Kappa coefficient of 0.95. The Kappa coefficient of 0.96 indicates that the ANN-CA model has high predictive reliability in predicting the LULC scenario in 2031. The results show that the continued expansion of cities leads to an increase in land surface temperature and a decrease in vegetation cover. This has major implications for sustainable urban development and contributes to SDG 11 and SDG 13.