Assessment of Urban Growth and Variation of Aerosol Optical Depth in Faridabad District, Haryana, India

Sustainable urbanization under sustainable development goals requires quantitative information on urban landscape. Despite having the fastest growth of urban area and poor air quality, Faridabad, a constituent district of National Capital Region, fails to gain much research attention.  Present study based on multi-temporal; freely available satellite image has indicated 3% increase in the built-up against 2% decrease arable land from 2008 to 2018. Further, spatial metrics (Shanon’s entropy, class area (CA), number of patches (NP), largest patch index (LPI)) has indicated scattered development of built-up. Increase CA (11470 ha in 2008 and 13806 ha in 2018) and NP (221 in 2008 and 476 in 2018) have indicated isolated development of built-up with small area coverage. Increase in LPI (12.5% in 2008 and 13.5% in 2018) of built up indicated compact growth of dense built-up in the southern and eastern side leading to the vertical expansion of the city area. Linear expansion of the residential built-up, industrial, and commercial area along the highways, roads and railways and vehicular emission has contributed to the high aerosol concentration. While, in the rural region the high aerosol loading has also been observed because of the extensive use of fertilizer and stubble burning. Present research on land-use land cover changes and its impact on air quality could be contributed significantly in urban policy making for climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies.