Integration of PRA with GIS for Planning of PERI Urban Areas

Urbanization is a worldwide phenomenon, since mid 20th century both developed and developing countries across the world are experiencing rapid urban growth with or without adequate/ necessary infrastructure. Urban settlements are continuously growing in size all well as in numbers. Urban development at the dawn of the new millennium is characterized by fading structural boundaries and the outward shifting of urban gravitational centres incorporating a growing area of rural landscape; agriculture once the predominant space consuming and economic factor within rural-urban fringe is largely losing this position and today it mainly functions as reserve potential for urban expansion (Zsilincsar, 2003). Cities are the hubs of opportunities of livelihood and prosperity. Urbanization across the world is the outcome of rapidly growing and expending cities to host influx of population. The increasing number of urban residents are a result of three developments; expansion of cities, where the growth of the cities is absorbing villages surrounding the cities, migration from rural to urban areas and high population growth in the cities themselves (Bakary, 2005). Increase in size of a city does not only mean expansion of city boundary, but also aggregation of urban infrastructure such as roads, airports, etc. This expansion often referred to as urban sprawl which has significant impacts on the environment. Nowadays urbanization is no longer typical for the growth of cities or towns only, but it influences the process in the rural countryside as well (Antrop, 2004). The real modification of landscapes is induced by elements of urbanization such as residential or industrial land development. The areas outside the city boundary are characterized by intermittent and scattered demonstration of the city in some non-farm residences and estates with commuting patterns to the city. The rural – urban fringe is an area of mixed rural and urban population and land use which begins at a point where agricultural land uses appear near the city and extends up to a point where villages have distinct urban land uses or where some persons, at least, from the village community commute to the city daily for work or other purposes. The area beyond the city limits but contiguous to it, having other municipal towns, Census towns or fully urbanized villages, constitute so-called urban fringe, which is the part of the rural urban fringe zone (Ramachandran, 1989).These peripheral areas of the cites are known by various names viz. urban fringe, rural-urban fringe, dynamic edge outskirt, city edge, peri –urban, rural urban interface, etc