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Spatio-temporal changes in the Rishikesh agglomeration, Uttarakhand, India

Article in Disaster Advances · July 2023

DOI: 10.25303/1608da055066

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 Disaster Advances Vol. 16 (8) August (2023)

Spatio-temporal changes in the Rishikesh

agglomeration, Uttarakhand, India
Naithani Harsh1, Sharma Vikram2, Kumar Sanjay3, Tiwari Seema3, Liaqat Ibrar2, Kumar Parvendra4
and Jayal Tripti5*
1. Department of Geography, DBS (PG), College Dehradun, Uttarakhand, INDIA
2. Department of Geography, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, INDIA
3. Department of Geography, Mahila Maha Vidalaya, BHU, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, INDIA
4. Department of General and Applied Geography, Dr. Harisingh Gour Vishwavidyalaya Sagar, (A Central University), Madhya Pradesh, INDIA
5. State Environment Conservation and Climate Change Directorate (SECCCD), Dehradun, Uttarakhand, INDIA
*triptijayal@[Link]

Abstract had increased (67.7 MT) but the availability of agriculture

Rishikesh is one of the fastest growing urban land reduced (1797210 Km2). The land use planning is
agglomerations in Uttarakhand state of India. Being a secondary process but population control programme should
religious and historical city, it attracts millions of be on priority. With no strict control on population
production, it is believed that in 2024, India would become
tourists across the globe, hence a huge pressure is
the most populous country of the world and it will add 375
created over the limited land space. To tackle the million urban dwellers by 2050 in comparison to the present
pressure of tourists and satisfying the increasing 440 million and it will also create huge pressure on Indian
demand of the space resulted into the expansion of cities.9,13,16
urban area of Rishikesh. The study deals with the
spatio-temporal changes occurred in the city of The increasing population growth is creating pressure on the
Rishikesh. The urban land use and land cover changes land use and land cover (LULC). The LULC pattern was
are analysed with the help of geographic information changed by the rapid growth of population. The
system. unsystematic land use changes in the urban areas have
adverse impact on the social and physical environment of the
cities. The forest, soil, river ecology and slope are adversely
The analysis of satellite data (Landsat series MSS, TM,
affected. The social well-being, water availability, food
ETM + and OLI science 1972-2020) reflects that the availability, slum growth, unemployment, malnutrition,
settlement growth was quite unplanned. The haphazard health facilities and housing are common problem of Indian
growth of city resulted into the reduction of agriculture cities. The traffic congestion, air pollution, land pollution,
land. Various hotspots of settlement growth were solid waste problem and sewerage problem lead to many
noticed in study region. The town has limitation to health problems in cities. The changing unsystematic land
growth because the town is enclosed by forests and holy use pattern increases the vulnerability of hazards impacts by
river Ganga. There is urgent need to check city’s earthquakes, floods, landslides, soil erosion and urban heat.
carrying capacity, high concentration of settlements
and to maintain the concept of sustainable The general land use status of these cities indicated that the
development. green cover has decreased, the built-up area increased and
open space had been reduced. The settlement growths were
Keywords: Urban Agglomeration, Land use, Land cover, seen in the commuter zone of cities.6 The vulnerability of
Geographic Information System (GIS), Settlements. town depends on the various factors such as location;
hazards, social infrastructure facilities, connectivity, cities
design etc. Mumbai, Delhi and other metropolitan urban
Introduction areas not developed as per the modern way, so these cities
Urban land use, land cover and their change related studies suffer during the excessive rainfall and are vulnerable to
are very important in Indian Himalayan region from flood. Carrying capacity, over population, slum area,
management and analysis point of view. The sustainable incidences of crimes, poor administration, lack of solid
management goal cannot be achieved without understanding waste management are other factors which increased the city
the pattern of its development.7 The problem of land use vulnerability and risk.
planning is increasing day by day in India. The shortage of
pasture and deforestation were recorded in India and at The biggest question is how to make the city more resilient
global level. from vulnerability points of view. To study the urban trends,
land use patterns and temporal growth of town reflect the
The consequences of these mishappenings created adverse reality of urban development15. Urban land use planning
ecological imbalance, increased incidences of soil erosion, problem can be solved through the advanced applied aspect
landslides, water pollution, land degradation, air pollution, of GIS and RS and reform of land use policy. However,
flood, water logging etc. However, many efforts had been many efforts have been done but failed to formulate the final
introduced for the planning and management of land use but layout plan of urban sustainable development.
have not succeeded. However, the production of agriculture

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 Disaster Advances Vol. 16 (8) August (2023)

Study area 30 metres. But digital globe provides the satellite imageries
Rishikesh is one of the prominent cities of Uttarakhand and of 15 metres.11 Google earth have images of 20 years old.
is well known for its tourism and cultural activities. This city These open-source images can be used for education and
exists in the north-west direction of the India surrounded by research purposes. The temporal change of study region
the Himalayas from three directions and holly Ganga is from 2001 to 2020 is studied through the Google earth. The
flowing through it. Geographically, Rishikesh is extended Google earth is basically a computer-based programme also
between 30.103368°N and 78.294754°E. The average known as the key whole viewer that represents the 3D
elevation of study region is 372 metres (Fig. 1). The numbers presentation of the earth surface through the satellite
of settlements are developed on both sides of river and imageries. The program basically maps the Earth by
sprawling towards the eastern bank. The city shared the superimposing of satellite images, aerial photography and
boundary with three districts of Uttarakhand namely GIS data onto a 3D globe permit user to monitor and observe
Dehradun, Pauri-Garhwal and Tehri-Garhwal. It has a the landscape from various angles.14 The fishnet was created
population of about 102000. according to the shape file of study area. The fishnet region
was classified into number of rows (19) and columns (20).
Rishikesh was one of the pilgrimage destinations and it Then this fishnet shape file was converted into the KML file.
became famous after 1968. In recent time, this city was The KML files were opened in Google earth and total 340
visited by about 30,000 tourists during the peak season images were downloaded as per the generated grid of fish
(April to August). The city was affected by the devastating net. Then these images of two-time period 2001 to 2020
flood of 2013 and incidences of landslides were also were downloaded. These satellite images were geo-
recorded. Rishikesh town also falls under the high sensitive referenced in open-source software Quantum GIS. Then
zone of earthquakes. theses geo-references images of two time periods were
digitized namely as separate personal geo-database of 2001
Material and Methods and 2020. The land uses of 2001 and 2020 were classified
The land use pattern and change are studied with the help of and the total land use and land cover were calculated under
satellite imageries of Google earth. The satellite imagery of the different classes of land use, land cover such as roads,
Google earth is more convenient from study point of view. water bodies, green cover, built-up, agriculture etc. Then
The satellite imageries of LANDSAT TM have resolution of their areas of two time periods were calculated by using the
GIS tool area calculator.

Fig. 1: Study area: Rishikesh town, India

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 Disaster Advances Vol. 16 (8) August (2023)

Fig. 2: Methodology

Table 1
Identified classes in the study
S.N. LULCC 2020 2010 2000
1 Water bodies 5.31 5.8 4.08
2 Green Cover 5.8 5.12 4.33
3 Road/Footpaths 1.51 1.3 1.1
4 Agriculture 17.21 18.11 23.12
5 Settlements 9.4 7.8 4.7
6 Barren land 3 4.1 4.9
42.23 42.23 42.23

Finally the interpretation and base maps of the study region geomorphology of the region. The geological aspect has
were generated1. The raster data set was used to analyze the important impact on the particular drainage pattern of the
land use land cover of different time period. The Landsat 8 region. The main river Ganga is joined by two main streams
was American earth observation satellite which provided of second order from the north western and south western
data at the 16 m resolution. The images were downloaded direction. Main stream is connected by the first ordered
from the USGS. Then after the data was geo-prosed in Erdas streams which are 8 in number. The drainage of the region is
Imagine software and supervised classification was used.18,19 controlled by the anthropogenic factor because of excessive
After that, the data was classified into different classes such growth of settlements. The drainage has no sufficient space
as built-up, agriculture, green cover, wasteland, grassland, to move on. In southern direction, the main river depicts the
scrubland and water bodies. The information was received erosive and depositional activities. But from the eastern
in the form of pixels value and then the pixels were sides, the region is less dominated by the drainage network.
calculated in the raster calculator. The areas of the classes
were also calculated in percentage. The recent drainage pattern is better from the agriculture
point of view because region has huge irrigation potential.
Results and Discussion But the agriculture area has been reduced from 2000 to 2020
Analysed Land use Land cover classes: The land use land and settlement growth has increased in the south and south
cover classes are classified on the basis of available, west direction. If we see from a disaster point of view, the
observed classes of land use land cover in study region. The region main 2 order stream had flood plains and these flood
area is classified on the basis of categories such as water pains received the unwanted growth of settlements. These
bodies, green cover, road/footpath, arable land, settlements settlements can be affected during the time of flood
and barren land (Table 1). incidences. The braided form of river had been noticed in the
south and south west direction. There is need of check to
Water bodies and drainage pattern: The study region control the erosion from sustainable development point of
pattern is always dominated by the topography and view. The river morphology has changed from 2000 to the

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 Disaster Advances Vol. 16 (8) August (2023)

2020. The river drainage area in 2000 was 4.08 km2, in 2010, The vegetation cover was very low in the central part of the
it was 5.88 km2 and in 2020, it was 5.31 [Link] indicates town. In central part, somewhere trees are in systematic way
that the river main area had increased and also there is along the road and footpath. The settlement construction has
positive change in main cover area under the water bodies. increased in the north western direction of the city where
This indicates the river cross section had increased in 20 green cover is low and presents the poor status of vegetation
years (Fig. 3 and table 1). cover. The large clusters of trees in and around private land
are observed. It is believed that this land was not sold out for
Vegetation Cover: The study region has sparse distribution business purpose and therefore some spots have huge cluster
of vegetation cover. The vegetation of the study area of tree cover.
presents the linear pattern along the stream and main river.

Fig. 3: Drainage network and patterns

Fig. 4: Green covers status of study region

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 Disaster Advances Vol. 16 (8) August (2023)

South and south west region has very sparse status of green growth of road. The city region has fully developed road
cover. This status is because of the presence of agriculture network. The settlement growth and roads had the positive
land. But in 2020, the green cover had increased because of correlation. The middle sector of the city has high
planned plantation in northeast and west direction. The concentration of settlement and high transport lines density.
agriculture land has been reduced from north east, north west But in the south direction, there is low road density and in
and in south west direction of study region. The increasing the north and Northwest, the left bank had low density.
tourism business is also one of the major causes for the These locations have low density, because the construction
change in the green cover area (Fig. 4 and table 1). The land was controlled by natural causes (forest and river). The road
use land cover study depicts that the tree/green cover in 2020 quality is good and satisfactory from social infrastructure
was 5.8 km2; in 2010, it was 5.12 km2 and in 2000 it was point of view. The road network has increased from 2000 to
4.33 km2. 2020. It was 1.1km2 in 2000, in 2010 it was 1.3km2 and in
2020 it was 1.51 km2 (Fig. 5 and table 1). The increasing
Road network: Roads are one of the discrete features which road network has indicated the negative growth in the
are digitised from the satellite images. The roads of the study agriculture land.
area are recognised as the well-developed road network.
Every sector of the town is linked with the roads and Settlements: The settlements and demography change are
cemented footpath. Every house and all colonies of the town one of the important study aspects of landscapes. The
are linked with motorable road. The gentle slope and landscape transformation is always affected by the
alluvium plain have encouraged the development and anthropogenic and natural processes.

Fig. 5: Road, streets footpath network

Fig. 6: Satellite Images show the 20 year drastic changes in growth of settlements and slight change
in stream channel of region

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 Disaster Advances Vol. 16 (8) August (2023)

Landscape of city is surrounded by the natural factors such settlements. In south and south west direction, Khadri,
as river and the forest. So, the city has the limitation to Bibiwala, Bhattonwala and Syampur have agriculture based
expand, city has no empty land for expansion of the city. The settlements. These areas have high spacing in comparison to
settlements have increased from 2000 to 2020. In 2000, the the other places of the study region. Some hot spots of
settlements have the area of 4.7 km2 and in 2020 it increased settlements such as Manvendra Nagar, East of Dhalwala and
to 9.4 km2 (Fig. 6, 7 and table 1). Vikas Colony are identified where settlement concentrations
are high and houses are attached with each other. These areas
The distribution of settlement in the area of Ashram, have congested settlements (Fig. 8).
Dhalwala and Ganga Nagar has high concentration of

Fig. 7: The spatial distribution of settlement in study region

Fig. 8: Visualisation of settlements growth from 2000 to 2020

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 Disaster Advances Vol. 16 (8) August (2023)

Agriculture land: The study region is suitable for the Colony, Vikas Colony, Ganga Nagar, Dhalwala and
agriculture development but the agriculture area is highly Tapovan completely changed into settlements (Fig. 10).
transformed due to the construction of settlement. In 2000
the agriculture area was only 23.12 km2. In 2010, the Barren land: Barren lands are the areas where plant growth
agriculture area decreased to18.11km,2 the agriculture area may be sparse, stunted and/or contain limited vegetation.
of the region decreased due to the growth of main town (Fig. Environmental conditions such as toxic or infertile soil, high
9). winds, coastal salt-spray and climatic conditions are often
key factors in poor plant growth and development. The
In 2020, the agriculture area was 17.21 km2. The social barren land and waste land covered area was only 4.9 km2 in
infrastructure was developed and agriculture lands of 2000, in 2010, the barren /wasteland reduced to 4.1 km2. In
Syampur, Bhattonwala, Bibiwala, Khadri areas were 2020, the barren land further reduced to 3 km.2 Most of
transformed into construction of settlements. Areas of IDPL barren land is used under the built-up area. Most of
settlements growth are observed in 2020 (Fig. 11).

25 23.12

20 18.11
17.21

15
2020
km2

2010
9.4
10
7.8 2000
5.8 5.8
5.31 5.12 4.7 4.9
5 4.08 4.33 4.1
3
1.511.3 1.1

0
Water bodies Green Cover Road/Footpaths Agriculture Settlement Barrenland
Fig. 9: The land use land covers statistics of years in 2000, in 2010 and in 2020

Fig. 10: The agriculture status of study region

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 Disaster Advances Vol. 16 (8) August (2023)

Pattern and Types of settlement: The river and fertile plain The pattern of settlements indicates the relationship of
have become the major cause of growth along the river houses and terrain impact on its size and spacing. The pattern
valley. The distributions of settlements are affected by the represents the geometrical shape of settlement growth
topography of the study region. The region has plain adopted by the settlements3 (Fig. 12). The settlements of
topography which supported high concentration of town were established along the road, footpath and
settlements.10 Compact or nucleated settlements are also river/canal edge of a valley. The Rishikesh town was
noticed in the town where large numbers of houses are developed in the foothill of mountain. The wide
developed along the road and agriculture area is also intermountain valley is dominated by plain and agriculture
occupied by the settlements. The settlements are linear and land. The fields are dominated by many footpaths and these
rectangular in pattern. The size and spacing of settlement are footpaths were rectangular and cross each other at right
very low (3metres) which indicated the high density of angles. Star-shaped settlements emerge by the houses built
settlements.8,17 along the roads in Y-shape. T -shaped settlements emerged
at tri-junction of the roads while Y- shaped settlements are
In Government land the settlements are planned and well developing as the places where two roads meet the third one
established by planners for offices, institutional and other and houses are built along these roads.4 These settlements
building uses but in private, land area has not been are found on the both sides of a river where there is a bridge.
developed as per planning.

Fig. 11: Land use lands cover change from 2000 to 2020

Fig. 12: Types and Pattern of Settlements: Rectangular pattern, Double Village, Linear Pattern, Planned Building,
Compact Settlements, Star pattern

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 Disaster Advances Vol. 16 (8) August (2023)

Table 2
LULC Status of study region from 2000 to 2020
S.N. Classes 2000 2010 2020
1 Built-up 3.81 4.82 5.92
2 Agriculture 42.97 40.54 37.16
3 Green cover 14.60 14.09 14.34
4 Wasteland 2.1 3.51 1.58
5 Grassland 23.77 27.78 28.02
6 Scrubland 0.60 0.510 0.39
7 Water bodies 12.23 9.014 13.55
100 100 100

50
42.97
45 40.54
40 37.16
35
27.78 28.03
30
23.77
25
20 14.60 14.10 14.35
12.23 13.56
15
9.01
10 5.93
3.81 4.83 2.10 3.51 1.58 0.61 0.51 0.39
5
0
Grassland

Waterbodies
Greencover

Wasteland
Builtup

Scrubland
Agriculture

2000 2010 2020

Fig. 13: The raster based LULC status in 2000, 2010 and in 2020

The built-up area of the region is calculated in the form of has increased from 23.77% (2000) to 28.02% (2020) and
road, settlements bridges and helipads. The built-up area shrubs have also decreased from 0.60% in 2000 to 0.39% in
continuously increased from 2000 to 2020. The agriculture 2020. The water bodies of the basin also included the canal,
area has decreased from 2000 to 2020. The agriculture area nala (Small tributaries) and the main river (Fig. 14). The land
was 42.97% in 2000; in 2010 it was 40.54% and in 2020 it use land cover study revealed that the settlements of the
went down to 37.16% (Table 2). This indicates that the study region have continuously increased and the agriculture
agriculture area has been reduced because of increasing land has negative change, however, the waste land has
settlements and other social infrastructures. It was also positive change.
observed from the field observation that the region has
continuous development of social infrastructure from 2000 Conclusion
to 2020. The town has population pressure because town is The study region has the compact and semi compact
famous tourist spot. The settlement has the positive growth; settlements. The areas of Khadri, Syampur, Bibiwala, Sahab
it was 3.81 % in 2000, 4.82 in 2010 and 5.92% in 2020. This Nagar and Bhattonwala of Rishikesh towns have the spacing
data indicated that the region has continuous growth in of settlements more than the 2 metres in the southwest
settlements.5 direction of the city. But agriculture field is highly
transformed to built-up area (Fig. 15). In the north west and
The green cover includes the forest and scatter tress cover in right bank, there is the high concentration of settlement and
the region. The data shows that the green cover of the region spacing of settlements value is less the 1 metre. These region
has also increased from 2000 to 2020. It was 14.60% in (Ganga nagar, Manvendra Nagar, Dhalwala, Swarg Ashram)
2000, it reduced in 2010 to 14.09% and in 2020 it increased are known as the hot spots or intense growth of settlement
and reached to 14.34% (Table 2). The waste land of the (Fig. 16). In future these regions have no chance of more
region also received positive change from 2000 to 2020; the growth.
waste land has decreased from 2.1% in 2000 to 1.58 % in
2020. The waste land includes the barren land surrounding The vulnerability of floods shall be high in the region of
the main river and its tributaries. The grassland of the region Manvendra Nagar and Dhalwala. Settlement area lies in the

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 Disaster Advances Vol. 16 (8) August (2023)

flood plain (river cross section) of river. The areas of Ganga very compact nature of the settlements. IDPL colony has
Nagar, Manvendra Nagar and Dhalwala shall be highly average concentration of settlements in agriculture land with
vulnerable because of high concentration, low spacing and average spacing of settlements.

Fig. 14: Raster data statistics of Land use land cover 2000 to 2020

Fig. 15: The hot spot based analysis of urban growth in study area

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 Disaster Advances Vol. 16 (8) August (2023)

Fig. 16: Spatial distribution urban settlements and Z score based analysis of urban growth in study area.

Acknowledgement 8. Hagget P., Location Analysis in Human Geography, London:

The authors are heartily thankful to different stakeholders Edward Arnold, 386 (1965)
(local communities, NGOs, Researchers, project authorities
9. IMF the long good life demographics and economic well-being,
and local people) for their constant support and cooperation finance and development: a quarterly publication, 57(1), 1-68
during the field study. (2020)

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