Exploring the nexus between land use land cover (LULC) changes and population growth in a planned city of islamabad and unplanned city of Rawalpindi, Pakistan

For the last three decades, Islamabad - a planned city, and Rawalpindi - an unplanned city, have experienced massive land use and land cover changes. The main objective of this study was a comparative assessment and quantification of LULC changes in relation to population growth and urbanization from 1990 to 2021 with the help of satellite imagery and population data in planned and unplanned cities. For classification four land-use land cover classes: built-up, vegetation, bare land, and water were selected. Maximum likelihood algorithm and confusion matrix were employed for classification and accuracy assessment. Results revealed that built-up increased from 5.7% (52 km(2)) to 25.7% (233 km(2)) and 3.7% (60 km(2)) to 14.1% (228 km(2)) from 1990 to 2021 for Islamabad and Rawalpindi, respectively. Wherein the bare land decreased from 42.2% (382 km(2)) to 18.1% (164 km(2)) in Islamabad and 65.5% (1058 km(2)) to 32.1% (518 km(2)) in Rawalpindi. Vegetation showed an increment of 4.7% for Islamabad and 24.5% for Rawalpindi. Surface water bodies decreased in both study areas. Population growth showed a strong positive correlation with the built-up class and a strong negative correlation with the bare land class for both cities. The outcomes of this study may be helpful in policymaking for better planning and management of land use land cover and urban sprawl in the context of sustainable development goals.