Integrated Spatial Planning Support Systems for Managing Urban Sprawl

Abstract

The paper addresses the issues and problems that concerns managing urban sprawl in India. Three essential steps to strengthen policy, planning and decision making are outlined while identifying the gaps. In India, as per constitutional provisions, there is a mandate with urban local bodies for administering, managing and preparing master / development plans. Mostly these plans are static maps with limited forecasting capabilities and there is a dearth of models for planning process and hence leading to ad hoc decisions. Besides this, these plans mostly restrict to demarcate only land use zones with little or no effective regulation for the same. Further, with planning authorities restricting to mostly land uses, there is hardly any coordinated effort to involve or integrate transport, water and sanitation, etc. in the planning process. This results in organisations involved or catering to different services (transport, health, water, energy, etc.) work in isolation to address basic amenities. Lack of coordination among many agencies has lead to unsustainable use of land and other resources and also uncoordinated urban growth. Urban governance and administration requires keeping track of various processes, activities, services and functions of the urban local body, which is possible through an information system. In the absence of any such systems, at the basic level, there is a strong and pressing need for an information system to cater to all these. In the next level, it becomes essential to build models based on the information systems involving simulation and analysis for specific urban contexts. The subsequent level involves evolving different strategy and policy options using the models and information systems. Thus, at the outset, there are three essential steps to address the problem of sprawl and to strengthen planning and decision making – information systems, models and policies. Review of the different geospatial modelling techniques (operations research, system dynamics, geospatial, agent-based, etc.) being used in the urban context highlights the increased dependence on geo-based models and also the need for an integrated spatial planning support system.

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