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Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research

Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research

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Project • ARCP2008-17NMY, ARCP2009-05CMY

Peri-Urban Development and Environmental Sustainability: Examples from China and India

Large-scale urban development is likely to be one of the primary sources of environmental change in Asia over the next decades, and more of this development will take place in India and China than in any other two countries. Understanding the dynamics and the ecological consequences of urban expansion is critical to crafting policies and institutions to manage it properly. Comparative analysis of these processes within and between different countries is an indispensable prerequisite to such an understanding.

This study has assembled remote sensing, demographic, environmental and other data over a period of forty years for a systematic comparison of urbanizing regions in China and India. Data on trajectories of urban development in parallel samples of 10 Chinese and 10 Indian cities over 1970-2010 were compared to examine how urban forms have changed and the consequences for environmental change.

The analysis has revealed strikingly different transformations of urban form in Chinese and Indian urban regions. In China peri-urban expansion has proceeded consistently regardless of city size in coastal regions with strong external investment, but less systematically in some inland regions and little in others. In India, peri-urban expansion has been less dramatic and has varied less between regions with higher and lower external investment. Indian patterns of peri-urban expansion also differ systematically from corresponding Chinese patterns.

The sources of these variations in different land market institutions, policymaking structures, national policy, infrastructure investment, transnational investment flows and patterns of rural-urban migration. Detailed qualitative and quantitative case studies in several paired urban regions of China and India have scrutinized these dynamics more closely. Meetings with stakeholders in both countries have provided lessons for policy and aided the analysis. Results have also been presented at the IHDP Conference on Urbanization and Global Environmental Change and other international scientific fora.

Project publications

Peer-reviewed publication • 2014

Spatio-temporal dynamics along the terrain gradient of diverse landscape

Peer-reviewed publication • 2014

Monitoring urbanization and its implications in a mega city from space: Spatiotemporal patterns and its indicators

Book / book chapter • 2013

Understanding urban sprawl dynamics of Gulbarga – Tier II city in Karnataka through spatio-temporal data and spatial metrics

Peer-reviewed publication • 2013

Prediction of shallow landslide prone regions in undulating terrain

Peer-reviewed publication • 2013

Influence of catchment land cover dynamics on the physical, chemical and biological integrity of wetlands

Report • 2013

Project Final Report: ARCP2009-05CMY-Sellers

Peer-reviewed publication • 2013

Algal biofuel from urban wastewater in India: Scope and challenges

Peer-reviewed publication • 2013

Analysis of spatial patterns of urbanisation using geo-informatics and spatial metrics

Peer-reviewed publication • 2013

Urbanisation and sprawl in the Tier II City: Metrics, dynamics and modelling using spatio-temporal data

Peer-reviewed publication • 2013

Land use land cover dynamics in a rapidly urbanising landscape

Peer-reviewed publication • 2013

Land surface temperature responses to land use land cover dynamics

Peer-reviewed publication • 2013

Interventions in the management of urban solid waste

Peer-reviewed publication • 2012

Insights to urban dynamics through landscape spatial pattern analysis

Peer-reviewed publication • 2012

Empirical patterns of the influence of Spatial Resolution of Remote Sensing Data on Landscape Metrics

Peer-reviewed publication • 2012

Spatio temporal patterns of urban growth in Bellary, Tier II City of Karnataka State, India

Peer-reviewed publication • 2012

Spatio-temporal dynamics of urbanising Landscape in Twin Cities in Karnataka, India

Peer-reviewed publication • 2012

Decentralised carbon footprint analysis for opting climate change mitigation strategies in India

Peer-reviewed publication • 2012

Conservation of wetlands to mitigate urban floods

Peer-reviewed publication • 2012

Spatio-temporal dynamics of landscape dynamics in Shimoga, Tier II city, Karnataka State, India

Peer-reviewed publication • 2011

Addressing Issues for Land Change Science

Report • 2010

Governing ecosystem services from upland watersheds in Southeast Asia (Working Paper)

Book / book chapter • 2010

Geoinformatics for Urbanisation and Urban Sprawl Pattern Analysis

Peer-reviewed publication • 2010

Urban expansion in contemporary China: What can we learn from a small town?

Conference material • 2010

Chinese urban form in the past three decades: Pattern and process.

Brief • 2010

Climate and Human-Related Drivers of Biodiversity Decline in Southeast Asia

Peer-reviewed publication • 2009

The governance of ecosystem services from tropical upland watersheds

Brief • 2009

The Role of Governance in Managing Ecosystem Service Trade-offs

Peer-reviewed publication • 2009

Strategic Partnership for Sustainable Management of Aquatic Resources