Studying town morphology through Remote Sensing

Remotely-sensed data products have got unique advantage over conventional data-gathering techniques in the study of urban morphology. The physical parameters like built-up area density, street pattern, population density, urban structure as well as functional characteristics which can be derived from land use/land cover map, are clearly visible on aerial data products. This technique provides synoptic view of the area which makes the study comprehensive and uniform. Sequential aerial photographs and satellite imagery help in studying the growth of urban area and temporal changes in urban structure. These informations are very useful in the planning of city extension. Here an attempt has been made to study the urban morphology of Saharanpur city by using panchromatic aerial photographs on scale 1∶10,000, IRS-1B LISS II geocoded imagery on 1∶50,000 scale and photo-maps on 1∶4000 scale, and the results are very encouraging.