Forecasting land use/cover changes and their influence on groundwater recharge in Chennai, India: Recommendations for sustainable urban development

ABSTRACT

Land use/cover (LULC) changes significantly impact various environmental and social factors. In this study, we used a hybrid model that integrates Multi-Layer Perceptron-Markov Chain Analysis to forecast changes in LULC of Chennai city and its surrounding area until the year 2101. We also evaluated the impact of these changes on groundwater recharge potential zones (RPZ) and suggested policy recommendations for better urban planning. Our results indicate a rapid increase in built-up areas (238 km²/decade) and a corresponding decrease in agricultural lands (167 km²/decade), with a continuous reduction in the area occupied by the waterbodies (15 km²/decade). Furthermore, the estimated changes in RPZ demonstrate a decline in high recharge potential areas, emphasizing the need for effective policies to enhance groundwater recharge. The study provides insights into sustainable urban development. We recommended policies for promoting green urban spaces to mitigate LULC impacts on groundwater recharge.

KEYWORDS:

• LULC
• urbanization
• weighed overlay analysis
• recharge potential
• ANN
• MLP-MCA

Acknowledgements

We thank the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (Grand No: DST/TM/WTI/WIC/2K17/82(G)) for financial support. We also thank WRIS, India for providing LULC data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author’s contribution

LE: conceptualized the idea of this study. PVRS: collected, analyzed and interpreted the data. MRK: interpreted LULC changes. LK: interpreted RPZ changes. All authors were involved in writing and approval of the final manuscript.

Availability of data and materials

All data collected, generated, and analyzed in this study are available upon request per ethical guidelines and permission of the funding agency.

Additional information

Funding

The authors thank the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India [Grand No: DST/TM/WTI/WIC/2K17/82(G)] for financial support.