GIS Applications in Land Use and Land Development of a City

Since liberalization was introduced in the year 1991, Indian cities have been experiencing an accelerated pace of growth. This has created opportunities for technocrats and planners alike to guide and develop the process of planned development and management of cities. Efficient urban information system is a vital pre-requisite for planned development as the ever increasing demands in urban planning and management call for co-ordinate application of Geographic Information System (GIS), for sustainable development of urban areas. The availability of satellite images from Google earth has revolutionized the process of thematic mapping and spatial data base creation, specially, in the context of urban and regional planning. Technologies such as GIS have emerged as a powerful tool in integrating and analyzing the various thematic layers along with attribute information to create various planning scenarios for decision making. The ability of GIS to store, manage and manipulate large amounts of spatial data provides urban planners with a powerful tool. This paper focuses on how GIS can be applied to establish, maintain, and analyze urban and land-use information for location and development of industries, educational institutions, housing, water supply, service facilities, sewer systems, etc. The present case study involves the suburbs of Boduppal and Pirzadiguda in Hyderabad city of the state of Andhra Pradesh in India.