Title: An urban ecology approach to land-cover changes in the Adyar sub-basin: comparative analysis of NDWI, NDVI and NDBI using remote sensing

Authors: Mythili Madhusudhan; N.K. Ambujam

Addresses: School of Architecture, Meenakshi College of Engineering, 12, Vembuli Amman Koil Street, West K.K. Nagar, Chennai, 600078, India ' Centre for Water Resources, College of Engineering, Anna University, Sardar Patel Road, Guindy, Chennai, 600025, India

Abstract: The impacts of urbanisation may be social, environmental or ecological. In this paper, studies on the characteristics of urbanisation and its impacts in Chennai, India, particularly the South Chennai region are discussed. The study involves use of Landsat images and comparison of normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) corresponding to mentioned dates in 1977, 1998 and 2018. Also, the normalised index for water (NDWI) and the built-up index (NDBI) are mapped and compared for the same dates. The results show that for the years 1977, 1998 and 2018, the difference between the maximum and minimum values of NDVI are found to be 1.609, 1.026 and 1.288, of NDWI are found to be 1.802, 1.239 and 1.518, and of NDBI are found to be 1.785, 0.993 and 1.036, respectively. The trends in indices for the dates considered are found to correspond to human activity and the significance of these changes is discussed.

Keywords: urban ecology; normalised difference vegetation index; NDVI; normalised difference water index; NDWI; normalised difference built-up index; NDBI; Landsat; remote sensing; land use; South Chennai.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESD.2022.126083

International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development, 2022 Vol.21 No.4, pp.407 - 426

Received: 01 Sep 2020
Accepted: 20 Jan 2021
Published online: 11 Oct 2022 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article