A little help from above

A little help from above
Satellite images are the latest hi-tech tools which can help in city planning. Amit S Upadhye details the advantages of using the eye in the sky


The plight of citizens residing on the old alignment of BMRDA expressway project could have been avoided if the developing agency had opted for high-tech satellite imagery mapping. Instead, it used old revenue base maps and aligned road-cutting through residential layouts.
In the future, such redundancy can be avoided as civic agencies can plan projects using computer projections.
An ISRO map is the basis of a software being put together by the Department of Management Studies and Centre of Sustainable Technologies at Indian Institute of Science (IISc). The spatial planning support system will be rolled out shortly.
This system will have every minute detail about Bangalore, including city population, migrant population, water bodies, open spaces, vegetation, vehicular density and built-up areas — all acquired from the most advanced satellites. The system would eventually help in evolving policy and management options and addressing problems of urban sprawl.
For instance, if a city planning agency wants to build a multi-storey parking complex, one can provide system inputs in terms of dos and don’ts before seeking the possible location for it. If the agency wants to retain water bodies and vegetation, the system would show all possible places, taking into account every detail of the area, population, soil conditions without harming water bodies.
Details whether the area is conducive for development will show up along with existing greenery and water bodies and how much of lung space will still be left once the project is ready.
Two years of research by Prof T V Ramachandra, department of ecological sciences, and researcher H S Sudhira, department of management studies, has made this system possible. The team used spatial images of Bangalore from National Remote Sensing Agency’s LISS-3 satellite and Indian Remote Sensing Satellite — IRS 1D. These images have been made available from 1973 till 2006. The images of Bangalore in 1973 have been taken from the US satellite LandSat.
According to Sudhira, using satellite remote-sensing data, urban growth has been modelled along with numerous drivers responsible for land use change as agents.
“Currently, planning and relevant documents are static paper maps with rigid land use zoning regulations. These are not responsive to policy decisions and don’t help in monitoring any deviations of planned zoning regulations. The new system would mainly help city planning agencies,’’ Sudhira explained.
The software will be available on the internet and those interested in installing it would have to contact the researchers. The cost factor has not yet been worked out.
HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS
An agent-based model has its origin in software engineering and artificial intelligence
The front-end shows city’s spatial domain. The back-end is driven by numerous models that captures various dynamics of the city
System can be run on any computer. It will show more than 15 indicators on the screen such as population, built-up area, soil condition, vehicle density, open spaces, vegetation, etc.
Area maps show the ground reality which can help planners