Effects of Urban Expansion on Vegetation and Water Bodies in Nawabshah City, Sindh, Pakistan
Abstract
Urbanization has become a significant basis of environmental change, especially in cities that are fast developing as in the case of developing countries. Nawabshah, which is the fifth biggest city in Sindh province, Pakistan has had great spatial development in the last thirty years and this has caused great change in land use and land cover specially, change in vegetation and water. This paper examines spatio-temporal changes of urban expansion and its effects on vegetation and water bodies in Nawabshah city between 1990 and 2024 based on multi-temporal imageries of Landsat and remote sensing (RS) technology that are combined with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Supervised classification was used to determine the land use which was classified under built-up areas, vegetation and agriculture, open areas and water bodies. Changes were measured by statistical analysis such as descriptive statistics, ANOVA and urban expansion intensity (UEI). It was found that the built-up area has expanded 4.57 km² in 1990 to 11.27 km² in 2024, the vegetation and agriculture area had decreased from 41.48 km² to 29.65 km², and the water bodies had also decreased from 1.23 km2 to 0.68 km2. The disadvantages of urbanization in terms of ecological effects, such as the loss of habitat, the decrease in the green cover and water stress are highlighted in these changes. The paper highlights that there is a need to be sustainable in planning urban centers, growth and conservation of green infrastructure in order to reduce environmental degradation in the rapidly growing urban centers.
Keywords: Urban expansion, Vegetation loss, Water bodies, Remote Sensing, GIS, Nawabshah
