C01

Research Abstracts on Spatial Information Science
CSIS DAYS 2010Land Cover Change Modeling in Kathmandu, Nepal
Rajesh Bahadur Thapa and Yuji Murayama
Division of Spatial Information Science, University of Tsukuba
Contact address: <thaparb@yahoo.com> Web: <http://giswin.geo.tsukuba.ac.jp/sis/>(1) Introduction: As the result of population growthand migration from rural to urban areas,urbanization has been recognized as a criticalprocess in metropolitan areas of Nepal. The
Kathmandu metropolitan region, capital and major
tourist gateway, has been facing rapid urbanization
over the last three decades. Recently, it has an
estimated population of 2.18 million with an annual
growth rate of 5.2%.
(2) Objective: Main objective of this research is tomodel land cover dynamics in the Kathmandu
metropolitan region using weight of evidence andcellular automata techniques.
(3) Data and methodology: In this paper, two land
cover maps of the region at 30 meters spatial
resolution for the years 1991 and 2000 are acquired
from Thapa and Murayama (2010), which are
created using remote sensing techniques. Elevation,slope, population growth, and proximity to urban
centers, roads, rivers, and industries are investigatedas major drivers of land change in the valley. A landchange model is calibrated using the weight ofevidence in cellular automata framework (Thapaand Murayama, 2010). The model is designed in
DYNAMICA software environment. Overall
accuracy of the model is achieved at 91% with
Kappa coefficient of 86%.

(5) Conclusion: The simulation estimates, however, arebased on extrapolation from historic processes
which are not guaranteed to continue in the future
but it mirrors spatial patterns of land cover in thevalley if the historic process continues. In this case,the model has generated maps to show where andhow the land cover change in Kathmandu is headingin the next two decades from 2000, which may be a
critical reference to make decisions for guiding
future urban development and sustainable land
management in the valley.
(6) Reference:
Thapa, R. B. and Murayama, Y. (2010) Urban
growth modeling of Kathmandu metropolitan region,Nepal. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems(in press).

(4) Results： The Fig. 1 shows the land cover maps of1991 and 2000 derived from the remote sensing andGIS techniques, and simulated land cover maps of2000, 2010, and 2020 derived from the modeling.
Using the same configuration of the 1991-2000
simulation model and input map of 2000 and road
network of 2000, we performed a simulation aiming
to extrapolate the spatial patterns of urban growth in
the valley for the year 2010 and 2020. The
simulated landscape for 2010 and 2020 shows theurban growth consistently expanding eastwards
agglomerating the sub-urban villages. The built-up
surface of villages in the southeastern part also
starts agglomeration by 2010. By 2020, all the urban
centers will be aggregated into a greater
metropolitan region in the valley. The observed
spatial patterns suggest that most vulnerable land
cover seems to be shrubs land which may change
likely to agricultural area. The changing spatial
patterns over the study period show that theagricultural area will be converted mostly to theurban built-up area.

Fig. 1: Real and simulated land cover maps (1991-2020)- 34 -