Applications of New and Emerging Forms of Geospatial Data in Urban Studies

The availability of high resolution data from remote sensing satellites has revolutionized the process of thematic mapping and geospatial database creation, specially, in the context of urban and regional planning. Further, Geographic Information System (GIS) has emerged as a powerful tool in integrating and analyzing the various thematic layers along with attribute information to create and visualize various planning scenarios for decision making. The increasing demands in urban planning and management sectors call for integrated application of remote sensing and GIS for sustainable development of urban areas. The various thematic layers (land use pattern, road network, water supply, solid waste disposal, soil map, ground water potential map, etc) can be generated which is then integrated with socio-economic and demographic data of the city to model the urban growth of the city. The present work is trying to emphasise the importance of geo spatial data in urban studies and to accentuate the future of applications of geo-spatial data in urban studies.