Open Access

ARTICLE

Integrating Temporal Change Detection and Advanced Hybrid Modeling to Predict Urban Expansion in Jaipur, a UNESCO World Heritage City

Saurabh Singh^1,2, Sudip Pandey^3,*, Ankush Kumar Jain¹

1 Department of Civil Engineering, Poornima University, Sitapura, Jaipur, 303905, Rajasthan, India
2 Faculty of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0808, Hokkaido, Japan
3 Graduate School of Environmental Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0808, Hokkaido, Japan

* Corresponding Author: Sudip Pandey. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Application of Remote Sensing and GIS in Environmental Monitoring and Management)

Revue Internationale de Géomatique 2025, 34, 899-914. https://doi.org/10.32604/rig.2025.071156

Received 01 August 2025; Accepted 24 October 2025; Issue published 09 December 2025

Abstract

Urban expansion in semi-arid regions poses critical challenges for sustainable land management, ecological resilience, and heritage conservation. Jaipur, India—a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage City located in a semi-arid environment—faces rapid urbanization that threatens agricultural productivity, fragile ecosystems, and cultural assets. This study quantifies past and projects future land use/land cover (LULC) dynamics in Jaipur to support evidence-based planning. Using the Dynamic World dataset, we generated annual 10-m LULC maps from 2016 to 2025 within the municipal boundary. Temporal change detection was conducted through empirical transition probability analysis, and future scenarios for 2026–2030 were simulated with a Markov chain model coupled with a neighbour-aware cellular automata (CA–Markov) allocation to capture spatial diffusion and terrain constraints. Validation on a 2025 hold-out achieved an Overall Accuracy of 0.79, Cohen’s κ of 0.15, and a figure of Merit of 0.073 for built-up gains, confirming credible localization of urban growth. Results reveal that the built-up area expanded from 340.57 km² in 2016 to 387.25 km² in 2025 (+13.71%) and is projected to rise by +44.96% by 2030. Over 2016–2025, cropland declined by −40.83%, shrub/scrub by −27.71%, tree cover by −4.12%, and flooded vegetation by −41.28%, while bare ground (+3.14%), grass (−4.22%), and water (~+0.18%) showed minimal change. Forecasts for 2016–2030 indicate severe contractions in crops (−98.40%), shrub/scrub (−93.10%), trees (−80.44%), grass (−95.36%), water (−99.53%), bare ground (−99.51%), and flooded vegetation (−99.80%). These findings highlight an accelerating transformation of Jaipur’s peri-urban landscape, with built-up expansion occurring at the expense of nearly all productive and ecological land classes. The study demonstrates that CA–Markov–based LULC forecasting provides a reproducible and transparent framework for high-frequency monitoring and offers actionable insights for sustainable urban management in heritage cities under rapid growth pressure.

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Keywords

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