A research study submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, School of Environment, Resources & Development

Research Studies Project Report (M. Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1995

The assessment of land use pattern and urban fringe dynamics is very much important and inevitable for planning and monitoring the urban environment, particularly for a metropolis like Lahore. The study is aimed to investigate land use and spatial growth of Lahore Metropolitan with an attempt to explore the application of two emerging technologies of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) for these purposes. SPOT satellite data of 06 May 1986 and 23 Oct 1994 in the form of photo images are used, and an indepth interpretation and analysis of these images is performed by visual approach. A GIS model prepared to store, manipulate, analyze, and presentation of useful information; using satellite data, exogenous data and field surveys (ground truthing) as the input. As such, Pakistan has not entered in the epoch of the use of Remote Sensing and GIS for urban environmental planning and management. The study identified the synergism of SPOT (Pan & XS) and GIS as very successful and proved a viable data source and data management system, and it is equally replicable to other urban areas as well. The results of the study revealed that the city is expanding very rapidly at the cost of agricultural land in the southern direction, in the form of periodic waves of leaping out and filling in vacant land. This uni-directional fleet dynamic of fringe line is creating an imbalance situation which can be checked by proper monitoring which in turn, required unremitting flow of information. So, this situation will make it obligatory to use the new technologies. Future generation of satellite products and improvement in GIS will make it more easy to undertake the built urban environment.