Introduction

India is a vast country. About 30 percent area of India is urban. But nowadays the
urbanization is increasing at a rapid pace. The nearest villages of the city are now con-
verting into suburb land. The urbanization is the process of becoming urban. In other
words, it is a demographic process whereby an increasing proportion of the population
of a region or country lives in urban areas. On the other hand, cities are also expanding
in size and relative importance in many parts of the world due to a rapid increase in
urban population. Many reasons have been given for the rapid growth of urban popu-
lation in developing countries. One of the chief causes has been an unbridled influx of
rural population into urban areas. With improved agriculture and increasing pressure
of population on land, the surplus rural population is released and pushed out. In the
meantime, a pull force on account of industrialization in urban areas has attracted the
potential rural migrants to the cities. With rapid pace of industrial development in the
towns, progressive mechanization of the farm, disintegration of the joint family system,
and some increasing demands for men and material in commercial enterprises and pub-
lic utility services, this migration of rural population into urban areas, in search of food
and shelter, is expected to continue unabated. Besides above reasons the attraction fur-
nished by job opportunities, greater economic insecurity of the adjoining villages, the
lure of improved social facilities for recreation, medical care and education and higher
creature comfort have also caused the influx of the people from rural districts to the
town.

Focus in the study of urban geography has increased recently. Urban geography em-
phasized the methods of how people are spaced in cities, in which it found as a complex
intermingling of different land-use type, i.e., a base for the development of modern
society. Impressions of growth of any settlement are revealed in the pattern of land
use, internal structure, and morphology. The study of urban land use is very significant
1
Introduction 2

for geographer because the availability of land and its value play a seminal role in the
determination of man’s economic, social, and cultural activities. ’Land use pattern of
a city is a reflection of anthropogenic transformation of land and dynamic of the city
which is conditioned, controlled and shaped by various phases of histogenetic evolution
and are guided by locations’. Changes in urban land-use patterns directly affect the
atmospheric circulation, hydrological process, the microclimate, soil, biodiversity, and
environmental pollution. For a global perspective, the process of urbanization caused
by urban land-use change and ecological degradation has led to global climate changes.

Urban land-use deals with the problems emerging in urban centers in the process of
selecting and translating into action, the optimum utilization of limited land between
shopping centers and residential areas. The differentiation in land use pattern in urban
areas varies due to internal differentiation in the location of commercial establishment,
administrative offices, factories, and residences. Due to the rapid increase in population
and size of the urban areas, the land-use changes. All these add a dynamic character to
the urban land use in comparison with rural areas. The urban land-use study is a new
branch of geography and its importance has been aroused since the Second World War
when the need for planning and re-planning of urban places was universally felt. Land
use varies according to differential demand and requirement of peoples, over a piece of
land utilized for a particular purpose, and often the density of development is constantly
under change, according to the changing need of the community (M ANDAL, 1999).

Literature Review

Urban land use

The increase in population in urban areas is known as urbanization. The gone days have
seen the birth of thousands of towns and cities, many of which have largely expanded
during the last fifty years. The growth is almost explosive. Though towns all over
the world have been significant as human settlement, their study from the geographical
point of view, unfortunately, neglected long. As a science of human settlement, urban
Introduction 3

geography deals with the complex urban areas which possess sharp internal differentia-
tion. It is concerned about the delineation of the urban activities which are expressed in
the characteristic association, intensive land use, and human occupancy features.

During the last three decades, sufficient literature has also appeared on urban land uses.
The review work on urban land use are described here:

BARTHOLOMEW (1933) has described the description of zoning techniques in urban

land use planning. Bartholomew states in his book Urban land uses that zoning was
designed to give to the better residential district, protection impossible to obtain by
private initiatives and curtail huge losses brought by uncontrolled growth.

F ISHER (1958) argued on urban land use pattern and spatial distribution of activities
that constitute urban land use in a paper entitled “Economic aspect of urban land use
pattern”. S HAPIRO (1959) states in his paper “Urban land use classification” that land
use classification system has divided into implied purpose to serve as the basis for a
description of the current land use pattern of industrial communities. The conventional
system of land use classification involves the ordering of “urban land use” into broad
classification such as “residential”, “commercial”, “industrial”, and so on.

Many authors have analyzed a particular use of land use especially the Central Business
District (CBD) (B URGESS, 1935; H ARRIS AND U LLMAN, 1945; H OYT, 1939) as cited
in urban geography. They presented their models. Models have explained the relation-
ship between the socioeconomic status of households and the distance from the CBD.
Burgess presented the concentric zone model, soon after Burgess generalized about the
concentric zone from city, Homer and Hoyt re-cast and modified the concentric ring
model in the account for major transportation routes. Hoyt and Homer gave the sec-
tor model. The third model is the multiple nuclei model developed by two geographer
Chauncy Harris and Edward Ullman.

L OEWENSTEIN (1963) states in his paper “The location of urban land uses” that location
of urban land use is the fundamental interest of city planner and urban geographer. The
author of this article mainly focused on techniques which may be used to study either
the same type of land use in different cities or different types of land use in different
cities or different types of land use in the same city. The statistical tool is employed to
Introduction 4

show that there is more variation in the spatial distribution of land use between different
categories than within the same category.

NATOLI (1971) claim that zoning regulation was adopted by American cities, especially
by New York City in 1916. Zoning was born out of such a concern for the unplanned
and disciplined growth of American cities. Zoning has become almost as ubiquitous as
cities themselves. Measuring the effects of zoning on the land use pattern is complex.
Zoning map represents planning goals and provides a measure of zoning’s impact on
developing land use pattern.

B OURNE (1974) states in his paper “Land economics” that change in the urban spatial
pattern is to analyze the interrelationship between different components of such pattern
such as between population characteristics and housing or between social areas and land
use distribution. The author analyzed the result by census reports. The paper “Land
economics” mainly outlined the two simple typologies of urban spatial structure. One
describes the underlying components of land use functional structure in cross-section
and second displays pattern of land-use change.

O NOKERHORAYE (1977) argued on contemporary land-use problems in the paper “Ur-

ban land use in Nigeria”. The author mainly focused on land use regulation policies,
and highlighted the urban land-use problems in major cities. The major problems are
associated with the urban growth pattern, urban land ownership, and structure of Nige-
rian cities. Proper land management policies or program are vital prerequisites for the
success of the development.

M C A DAMS (1980) states that in 1930 and 1940, the classical school of urban ecology
was criticized by land-use determinants. The “neoclassical” school analyze that ecology
is apart from cultural values. The paper “A power conflict approach to urban land use:
Toward a new human ecology” traces purposefully how urban spatial structure and land
use have been previously analyzed and offer an original typology of the influential factor
that shape urban land use.

S MITH AND M C C ANN (1981) has discussed the residential land use. It is argued that
city as a dynamic organism constantly is in the process of evolution. Great and complex
changes continue to leave their impression upon cities everywhere, not least in their
Introduction 5

established residential districts. Although historical studies of cities abound, true lon-
gitudinal studies in which consistent set of data are analyzed over successive periods
to determine if there are regularities in the sequence of change, are almost non-exotic.
Residential land use change manifested in two well-known processes that are of cen-
tral conceptual importance for this study. The first, redevelopment is the reuse of land
through the removal or demolition of an existing building and the construction of a new
one. The second, conversion is the physical alteration of an existing building, usually
to permit a higher density of occupancy in its most common form, single-family houses
are modified to accommodate two more self-contained households.

W ILDER (1985) examines the micro-level examination of the impact of the site and
situation characteristics on the land-use succession and conversion. Land use shifts
between eight economic activities were associated with distance from the CBD, parcel
acreage, floor area and age, and structure of each land use activity displaced unique
locational and site-specific features. Succession was highly centralized in the core;
conversion was dominant in the periphery. The majority of succession involved shifts
between single-family housing.

M C M ILLEN (1989) argued in his paper that continuous migration of people from sub-
urban to exurban area has caused a growing interest in urban fringe land markets. The
author mainly discusses the empirical model of land use in the urban fringe area of
Chicago, McHenry country which directly predicts land use. The three-land use are
considered: agricultural, residential and vacant. A multinomial model is estimated; a
purpose of the model is to determine the probability that a property was in a given use at
the time of sale. The empirical model fits the data fairly well and suggests some inter-
esting pattern. Finally, the model predicts residential land use accurately but identifies
vacant land as residential as often as vacant. This result suggested that vacant land ripe
for conversion to residential use in this fringe area of Chicago.

G AN (1990) discussed the features of urban land use in Beijing. The features of urban
land use, which have an important impact on the urban internal structures, are influ-
enced by the historical background, the socioeconomic conditions and human decision
in urban planning. The historical background and human decision determined the basic
frameworks of structure. The spatial structure of land use shows that Beijing still keeps
the characteristics of an industrialized city due to the importance of the industry. Other
Introduction 6

particular features were the absence of the CBD in Beijing although in socialist systems
urban spatial structure also displaced zonal, sectoral and star form. Moreover, the rapid
growth of economy and urbanization in China have accelerated the concentration of
population from rural to urban spaces and restructuring of the urban land use. There-
fore, it is necessary to establish a suitable structural model of urban land use in order to
satisfy the needs of urban planning and also to recognize the variety of urban internal
structures in developing socialist countries.

W EI (1993) states the problems in urban land use and the impact of economic reforms
and planning policies on rapid urban land expansion and structural transformation. The
rapid economic growth and urbanization have simultaneously promoted the expansion
of urban land and the restructuring of urban land use. The transformation of urban land
use has also been facilitated by changes in urban planning and development policies.

DAI ET AL . (2001) claim that the rapidly changing pattern of urban growth has given
rise to new problems for urban planning and redevelopment in China. The expansion
of the various basic urban facilities, especially water supply, sewerage, and sewage
disposal and transportation, constitutes the foremost municipal problems in most cities.
Technologically, geographic information systems (GIS) provide a powerful tool for geo-
environmental evaluation in support of urban land use planning. An important feature
of GIS is the ability to generate the existing diverse data set sharing a compatible spatial
referencing system. The GIS methodology for macro or micro zonation is capable of
providing a high degree of accuracy in assessing the potential suitability of land parcels
for urban development.

H EROLD ET AL . (2002) state that remote sensing has great potential for acquisition
of detailed and accurate land use information for management and planning of urban
regions. The study introduced a methodology using the information on image spa-
tial form- landscape metrics- to describe urban land use structure that results in urban
growth. Landscape metrics were calculated for segmented areas of homogeneous ur-
ban land use to allow further characterization of the land use of these areas. The results
show a useful separation and characterization of three urban land-use types: commercial
development, high-density residential, and low-density residential.
Introduction 7

H EROLD ET AL . (2002) argued that there are two fundamental problems in identifying
specific urban land use with digital remote sensing techniques; urban areas typically ex-
hibit a spatially heterogeneous land cover and there is a great deal of similarity in spec-
tral response from the different land cover and land uses in this environment. Therefore,
in order to derive accurate urban classification, it is necessary to utilize data acquired
by high spatial resolution sensors in conjunction with classifiers that are more sophisti-
cated than routine per-pixel algorithms. In this study authors examined the use of spatial
structure information -landscape metrics- derived from classified remote sensing data to
describe structures and changes in urban land use.

PARKER ET AL . (2003) claimed that land is a dynamic canvas on which human and
natural system interact. Understanding the many factors influencing land use has been
the focus of scientific study across multiple disciplines, location, and scale. The new
computational tool can be applied to various areas in geography such as industrial lo-
cation, transportation, biogeography or study of land-use change. K ERR AND C IHLAR
(2003) gave more focus on GIS and remote sensing techniques. The broad-scale land-
use measurement can’t be made purely based on remote sensing, which plays a key role
in the development of land use data.

H EROLD ET AL . (2005) analyzed that the study of urban growth and land-use change at
all geographic scales requires detailed and accurate data sets and appropriate methods
for their analysis, modeling, and interpretation. The authors mainly wanted to show the
systematic and combined use of these tools which can contribute an important new level
of information to urban modeling and urban analysis in general. The proposed approach
leads to an improved understanding and representation of urban dynamics and helps to
develop alternative conceptions of the urban spatial structure change.

PAULEIT ET AL . (2005) in their paper titled “Modelling the environmental impacts of

urban land use and land cover change-a study in Merseyside, UK” explored the en-
vironmental and ecological consequences of urban land use and land cover change in
residential areas. The main purpose was to find out whether and how land use and land
cover changed in selected residential areas; whether there were differences between
residential areas related to their socioeconomic status; and whether these changes had a
significant environmental impact. The decline in environmental quality in all residential
Introduction 8

areas in the study is due to the loss of greenspace, and specifically, trees lead to ques-
tions as regards the efficiency of greenspace policies. More attention needs to be paid
to greenspaces planning management.

M OHAN (2005) discussed in his paper about the urban land-use change detection im-
portance. Urban land-use changes are very dynamic in nature and have to be monitored
at regular intervals for sustainable environmental development. The economic activities
diffusion from the center to the periphery has been largely responsible for economic
growth and urban development. The cheap land is one of the important factors which
have been largely responsible for the dispersal of urban settlement and industries from
Delhi to Faridabad district. Based on the dynamic of urban land use analysis for the
different periods a number of land management strategies have been formulated in the
Faridabad district.

LU AND W ENG (2006) in their paper titled “Use of impervious surface in urban land-
use classification”, have gained a new approach for urban land use classification, based
on the combined use of impervious surface and population density. The impervious
surface has been recognized as a key indicator in assessing urban environments. Imper-
vious surface is anthropogenic features through which water cannot infiltrate the soil,
including roads, driveways, sidewalks, parking lots, rooftops, and so on. The research
on impervious surface extraction from remotely sensed data has attracted interest since
the 1970s. However, accurate impervious surface extraction is still a chance. Effec-
tiveness of impervious surface in urban land-use classification has not been well ad-
dressed. The author mainly explored the extraction of impervious surface information
from Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper data based on the integration of fraction im-
ages from linear spectral mixture analysis and land surface temperature. Five urban
land use classes (i.e., low, medium, high and very high-intensity residential areas, and
commercial/industrial/transportation uses) were developed. Results showed that the in-
tegration of fraction images and surface temperature provide substantially improved the
impervious surface image.

LI ET AL . (2011) examined the current use of high-resolution remote sensing technol-

ogy to monitor urban land-use change. Changes in urban land use pattern directly affect
the atmospheric circulation, hydrological process, the microclimate, soil, biodiversity,
and environmental pollution.
Introduction 9

G OETZ ET AL . (2003) argued that rapid rate of urban land-use changes commonly
known as suburban sprawl is now at the forefront of the local political disputes. Satel-
lite data can provide the capabilities for precisely mapping and monitoring suburban
sprawl. Multi-temporal satellite data now provide the potential for mapping and mon-
itoring urban land-use change, but require the development of accurate and reputable
techniques that can be extended to a broad range of conditions and environments.

Sustainable development

C HAN AND S HIMOU (1999) in their paper “Urbanization and sustainable development
in China: problems and prospects” state that the path of urbanization in People’s Repub-
lic of China is largely shaped by the nation’s industrial development strategies. Local
industries are promoted and protected as a result of local protectionism. The numerous
administrative barriers to free and open domestic markets meant that economies of scale
are difficult to achieve. The authors proposed a sustainable metropolitan development
strategy that suits the case of china. In designing a model of sustainable metropolitan
planning, it is essential to take into full consideration the economic, social and envi-
ronmental condition of individual localities. While experience from abroad may be in-
structive, it is nevertheless important to embrace the local economic and environmental
concern in the policy formulation process.

PACIONE (2001) in his article “The future of the city- Cities of the future” argued on
sustainable urban development and the concept of urban metabolism with particular ref-
erence to the basic issues of waste production and energy consumption. He evaluated a
range of models of the future urban form including the green city, dispersed city, com-
pact city, transit metropolis, regional city, network city, informational city and virtual
city and considers the geographies of cities and city life in the third millennium.

O LDFIELD AND S HAW (2002) in their paper titled “Revisiting sustainable development:
Russian cultural and scientific traditions and the concept of sustainable development”,
argued that the concept of sustainable development should remain open and contested.
In other words, it should actively embrace other (radical) interpretations of development
and in doing so engender a more dynamic and informative debate. This paper uses the
Introduction 10

case study of the Russian Federation to explore the relationship between official inter-
pretations of sustainable development and alternative understanding concerned with the
betterment of humankind, which draws on Russia’s cultural and scientific heritage.

A LM (2003) argued in his paper “Visualizing urban green qualities: A way of raising
the quality of the urban Landscape” about urban greenery in Sweden. In Sweden, re-
searchers have attempted to devise approaches to measure the quality of green spaces
that will allow more informed judgment to be made about their value design.

T OSICS (2004) in his paper titled “European urban development: Sustainability and the
role of housing” elaborated the link between housing and urban development. Using
examples of good and not so good practices, the author considered why housing expert
should investigate the environmental and spatial externalities of housing policies and
why expert working on urban development policies should take results of such analyses
into account.

H OLDEN (2004) claims about the sustainable urban development in his project “Ecolog-
ical footprint and sustainable urban form”. The overall aim was to obtain more empir-
ical and theoretical knowledge about the connection between physical urban planning
and household consumption. The project was based on two main assumptions. First,
its successes suggested that the significant and increasing environmental damage due
to private household consumption presents a major challenge in achieving sustainable
development. Second, a large part of this consumptions appears to be influenced by our
physical living situations, i.e., the way we design and locate our house.

BATTY (2006) in his paper titled “Planning for sustainable development in Britain”
explores concerns over apparent failures to translate the rhetoric of British Policy on
sustainable development into recognizable and widespread success. The paper looks at
the changing responsibilities of town planners at a time when the delivery of sustainable
is identified as central to their role. But a major point of the paper is that any analysis
of policy performance must understand planning as an enduring discipline distinct from
current institutional structure so that critiques of the current system can be disentangled
from critiques of the nature of urban planning.
Introduction 11

PACIONE (2007) in his article titled “Sustainable urban development in the UK: Rhetoric
or reality?” claimed that the concept of sustainable urban development represents a ma-
jor challenge for governments throughout the contemporary world. Despite the rhetoric
of sustainable development over the past two decades, the gap between public declara-
tions of principles and implementation of concrete measures remains significant in most
cities. This article first examines the complex concept of sustainable urban development
then explores the emergence of sustainable development philosophy within UK urban
policy. The theoretical and structural level analysis is complemented by consideration
of current strategies aimed at sustainable in part of the Thames Gateway. Finally, a
number of conclusions are presented on the prospects of sustainable urban development
in the UK.

M ERCIER (2009) in his paper titled “Equity, social justice and sustainable urban trans-
portation in the twenty-first century” argued on sustainable urban transport. The trans-
portation system is now an environmental issue. It will require proactive planning and
action that go beyond what public administration has ventured to do until now.

ROSS (2009) in her article “Modern interpretation of sustainable development” pro-

posed the value of sustainable development as a policy tool in the 21st century. She
argued that, given the challenges facing the earth today, especially climate change, the
early interpretation of sustainable development as a vague, malleable policy tool based
on week sustainability fail to address either the fact that there are limits to earth’s re-
silience or our cultural and moral failure to curb our consumption. Instead, the demands
of twenty-first-century require a much more meaningful instrument for farming deci-
sions. This article examines these interpretations to assess whether sustainable devel-
opment can provide a useful mechanism for delivering truly ‘sustainable development’.

M AESEN (2013) in his article “Analyzing societal circumstances, sustainability, and

sustainable urban development: New theoretical and methodological challenges for so-
cietal quality indicators” argued on the development and social quality indicators and
challenges ahead. First, through a review of recent Asian and Australian work carried
out on social quality indicators, and the World Bank related work on “social develop-
ment indicators”, the article argued that social quality indicators research should move
beyond the empirical level of particular policy areas. Therefore, it should be guided by
a clear methodological perspective regarding the role of indicators as part of a social
Introduction 12

quality theory (SQT) and their relation to the social quality approach (SQA). Second,
this article opens a debate about the rationale behind distinguished three different func-
tions of social quality indicators. Indicators should address the change in the conditional
factors in daily life, as manifested in its economic, sociopolitical, sociocultural and en-
vironmental dimensions, in order to examine the consequences of general trends and
contradictions in (1) societal circumstances, (2) the development (or lack of develop-
ment) toward sustainability, and (3) the related issue of sustainable urban development.
It is essential to delve deeper into SQT and the SQA for understanding these three issues
separately and integrally.

Peri-urban area

S HAW (2005) in her paper “Peri-urban interface of Indian cities: Growth, governance,
and local initiatives” states that the outward expansion of larger metros, gradual changes
in land use and occupations have transformed the rural hinterland into semi-urban or
peri-urban areas. Inhabitants of these ‘peri-urban’ regions are increasingly threatened
by the deteriorating quality of life promoted by deforestation, water depletion, and pol-
lution as well as by the poor or almost non-existent mechanism for sewage disposal. The
author explained the environmental dimensions associated with the spread of urban ag-
glomeration by focusing on the problems of increased solid waste in India’s peri-urban
regions.

W EBSTER (2011) in his paper “An overdue agenda: Systematizing east Asian peri-
urban research” explained that the complex and messy process whereby new urban land
is created on the periphery of cities is still poorly understood. The research on this phe-
nomenon is highly fragmented among land-use change detection analysts, sustainable
scholar, institutional experts, and community-oriented scholar; the result is that fast-
paced change on the ground driven by accelerating economic structural change in East
Asia is outpacing our understanding of the dynamics.

T OTENG (2009) in his paper “Access to service and infrastructure in peri-urban area
in Botswana: Case studies of Mogoditshane and Tlokweng” discussed on Botswana
peri-urban areas. The paper investigated community access to services and infrastruc-
ture, to establish residents’ access pattern and preferences. The range of services and
Introduction 13

facilities included the provision of education, health, water, security, power, telecom-
munication, general public administration services, housing, solid waste disposal and
access to shopping centers.

Significance of the Study

The study of land-use change referred to as change detection and the growth of urban
centers have gained prominence in recent years. This is partly due to the fact that there
is an increasing need for proper land use planning to control unplanned and haphaz-
ard urban development. Remote sensing and GIS techniques are very helpful for urban
growth and land-use change detection study. The satellite imageries give accurate in-
formation, periodically information about the terrain. Land use and urban growth study
with the help of satellite imageries is not only highly helpful in the comparison between
two or three time periods but also time and manpower saving technique.

The sustainable development indicators established a key role in policy making and as-
sessing policy implementation. If sustainability is identified as a comprehensive policy
goal, it must be measurable to know if it is moving towards or away from the desired
direction, and the indicators do exactly that. The study aspires to locate the specific
pattern of development and design tools and approaches for planning to attain the goals
of sustainable socioeconomic development of the peri-urban area of Varanasi city.

Objectives

The present study has been taken into consideration to examine the pattern of urban
land use and sustainable development in the peri-urban area of Varanasi city. The major
objectives of the study are:

1. To analyze the process of urban growth and urban sprawl of Varanasi city

2. To delimit the peri-urban area of Varanasi city on basis of selected variables.

3. To identify the decadal growth pattern of urban land-use change of the peri-urban
area of Varanasi city from 1996 to 2017.
Introduction 14

4. To frame suitable indicators to measure the sustainable development for the peri-
urban area of Varanasi city.

Hypotheses

The following hypotheses have been framed in the analysis of the present research work:

1. There is an association between occupational structure and highest qualification

in peri-urban area of Varanasi city.

2. There is a relation between income status of family and number of literates in

peri-urban area of Varanasi city.

Sample Design

The sample villages were purposely selected on the basis of percentage of the non-
agricultural worker. The sample villages are those villages where more than 75% pop-
ulation are non-agricultural workers. The delimited peri-urban area is up to 9 km from
city municipal boundary. The whole study area has been divided into 3 km, 6 km and
9 km buffers zones. Out of 615 villages, 31 villages were selected for the study. The
stratified random sampling method was used to divide the sample size according to the
zone and village. 5% of households are taken for the survey from each sampled village.
From the first zone out of 156 villages, 8 villages are chosen for a survey, from sec-
ondary zone out of 225 villages, 11 villages are chosen and from the third zone out of
234 villages, 12 villages are chosen for the study.

Limitation of the Study

There are certain limitations to the study. The selected thirty-one villages and 2756
persons as samples might not represent the universe truly. Many pertinent issues, which
could have portrayed the other dimensions, may not find a place due to the focused
Introduction 15

scope of the study. Likewise, certain qualitatively perceived submissions by the re-
searcher and information given by the respondents may suffer from prejudices. For the
preparation of land use map of different periods, data retrieved from Landsat satellite
were used, with a resolution of 30 m. The entities which are smaller than 30 m are not
visible, thus could not be documented.

The sustainability index for the peri-urban area of Varanasi city was calculated on the
basis to survey results which are based on indicators of socioeconomic development
which may vary from other villages which are not considered in the study.

Organization of Thesis

The present thesis entitled “Urban land use and sustainable development in the peri-
urban area of Varanasi city” has been organized into six chapters excluding introduction
and conclusion. The first chapter consists of a conceptual and methodological frame-
work while the study area and urban land-use changes of Varanasi city are presented in
the second chapter. Chapter third shows the urban sprawl of Varanasi city. Delimitation
of the peri-urban area of Varanasi city comes in chapter fourth while chapter fifth is
related to the land use analysis of the peri-urban area of Varanasi city. The sixth chapter
is devoted to sustainable development in the peri-urban area of Varanasi city. Finally,
the conclusion has been drawn.