Impact of urbanization induced land use and land cover change on ecological space quality- mapping and assessment in Delhi (India)

Abstract

Degradation of ecological quality has emerged as one of the serious environmental problems across the globe. Notably, in developing countries' cities, ecological quality deteriorates more prominent due to the dramatic loss of ecological spaces driven by rapid urbanization. This study aims to assess ecological space quality (ESQ) in Delhi megacity (India) using entropy method (EM) and geospatial approaches during 2000 to 2020. Correlation and regression analysis were carried out to understand the relationship and impact of socio-ecological variable (SEV) on ESQ. The model used was also validated using imperviousness at the administrative units (2020) from Sentinel 2 data. The model showed R2 = 0.44, indicating moderately low impact of imperviousness on ESQ. The finding showed that (i) ESQ substantially decreased from 2000 to 2020, (ii) the areas with very low and low ESQ increased by 753.74% and 145.49% and the areas with good and very good ESQ decreased by 50.10% and 68.65% (iii) western and central parts of the city were mainly characterized by very poor and poor ESQ (iv) ESQ decreased by about 19.33% from 2000 to 2020. The vegetation conditions, moisture had a positive impact on ESQ and soil and climate conditions harmed ESQ. Thus, the findings will helpful for spatial landscape planning and sustainable ecological space management.