Evaluating Spatial Patterns of Urban Green Spaces in Karachi, Pakistan through Satellite Remote Sensing Techniques

Urban ecology is a field of multiple disciplines and its practical applications has been rapidly growing. Changes in vegetation pattern and shift also defines climatic conditions of an area along with the urbanization. This research article deals with the temporal analysis of identification and classification of urban green spaces in Karachi for year 2000 and 2016. Supervised classification and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was applied to access identification and discrimination of increased urban area and elimination of green areas from Karachi. Data was acquired from LANDSAT satellite image data, analysis of vegetation cover was accessed by Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) by using ArcGIS 10.1 and ERDAS 2014 software. From analysis it has been observed that in previous sixteen years of research vegetation has increased but shifted from urban centers or city centers to suburbs of city. Area of vegetation shift is 4 percent, Barren land has been reduced to 14 percent and Build up has been increased to 3 percent over 16 years in Karachi. (author)