N these land-cover-change maps, Shannon’s entropy (Hn ) has verified its usefulness and reliability in quantifying the degree of compactness and dispersion of urban growth in absolute scale [4,9,113]. On the other hand, landscape metrics or spatial metrics [14], though initially emerging Guretolimod Toll-like Receptor (TLR) within the field of `landscape ecology’, are also increasingly MAC-VC-PABC-ST7612AA1 Autophagy becoming applied to quantify and monitor patterns of physical urban development on a relative scale [15,16]. Nevertheless, the use of a single metric may not reflect the actual reality, as each and every metric tends to have certain limitations. Researchers usually use Hn in mixture with other landscape metrics to establish and explain the results with greater certainty [4]. The Hn and other unique landscape metrics have already been applied at many spatial and administrative levels inside city systems to analyze urban growth. Some research take into account a total city-system because the unit of analysis [4,17]. Other individuals have regarded smaller sized components of your complete city as units of analysis, for example ward level inside a city [4,18,19], arbitrarily created sub-zones inside a city technique [4,12,20], or concentric circles of particular width(s) encircling a city center [3]. Additionally, zonal and city-level units are normally considered at the very same time to investigate urban development efficiently [4,21]. The Kolkata Metropolitan Area (hereafter KMA) depicts a really diverse structure. Metropolises in India consist of statutory urban locations inside the central portion and rural or peri-urban regions outdoors with the statutory urban locations. Such central and peripheral regions inside the exact same metropolitan technique have various administrative bodies, economic structures, population composition, and so on. Notably, the increase in size and population growth varies substantially from the urban core to the rural periphery [4]. As a result, it can be necessary to analyze, quantify and monitor such built-up development dynamics at rural and urban levels within the identical metropolitan technique to attain the inclusive and sustainable urbanization target as defined by the United Nations in Sustainable Development Aim (SDG) 11.3 and to create urban organizing additional realistic [22,23]. The present study attempts to quantify the urban growth dynamics of the KMA, India, utilizing an integrated RS-GIS application, and to prepare recommendations for inclusive and sustainable urbanization (SDG 11.3). For this objective, a zoning strategy has been made use of to examine the urban growth dynamics of KMA at 3 distinctive spatial levels, namely KMA, KMA-urban, and KMA-rural [4,24]. Multispectral and temporal Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Operational Land Imager (OLI) imageries have been regarded as over 20 years, i.e., in between 1996 and 2016. Post-classification comparison was applied as a change detection approach for analyzing spatiotemporal dynamics of land cover inside the metropolitan location driven by fast built-up growth [25,26]. The Hn was employed to quantify the degree of compactness and dispersion of the physical development of KMA on an absolute scale. Moreover, a set of other landscape metrics were applied to analyze the pattern, fragmentation, and heterogeneity in the physical growth in KMA and their dynamics over time on a relative scale. Finally, a set of policy suggestions and measures has been proposed for attaining SDG 11.3. The present study represents a exceptional contribution to urban landscape heterogeneity analysis and urban development dynamics concerning the proposed zoning strategy, areal coverage under theRemote Sens. 202.
