1.

EXPLAIN MIGRATION AND URBAN SPRAWL BY SHOWCASING THE

INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TWO?
migration is the movement by people from one place to another with the intentions of settling temporarily or
permanently in the new location. The movement is often over long distances and from one country to another, but
internal migration is also possible; indeed, this is the dominant form globally. The World Bank's Migration and
Remittances Factbook of 2011 lists the following estimates for the year 2010: total number of immigrants: 215.8
million or 3.2% of world population. In 2013, the percentage of international migrants worldwide increased by
33% with 59% of migrants targeting developed regions. Certain laws of social science have been proposed to
describe human migration. The following was a standard list after Ravenstein's (1834-1913) proposal in the
1880s. The laws are as follows:
1. every migration flow generates a return or countermigration.
2. the majority of migrants move a short distance.
3. migrants who move longer distances tend to choose big-city destinations.
4. urban residents are often less migratory than inhabitants of rural areas.
5. families are less likely to make international moves than young adults.
6. most migrants are adults.
7. large towns grow by migration rather than natural increase.
8. migration stage by stage.
9. urban rural difference.
10. migration and technology.
11. economic condition.
Almost half of these migrants are women, which is one of the most significant migrant-pattern changes in the last
half century. Women migrate alone or with their family members and community. Even though female migration is
largely viewed as associational rather than independent migration, emerging studies argue suggest complex and
manifold reasons for this.
Often a distinction is mad between voluntary and involuntary migration, or between refugees fleeing political
conflict or natural disaster vs. economic or labour migration, but these distinctions are difficult to make and
partially subjective, as the motivators for migration are often correlated. The World Bank's report estimates that,
as of 2010, 16.3 million or 7.6% of migrants qualified as refugees. At the end of 2012, approximately 15.4 million
people were refugees and persons in refugee-like situations - 87% of them found asylum in developing countries
Types of Migration
Internal Migration: Moving to a new home within a state, country, or continent.

External Migration: Moving to a new home in a different state, country, or continent. Emigration: Leaving one
country to move to another (e.g., the Pilgrims emigrated from England).
Immigration: Moving into a new country (e.g., the Pilgrims immigrated to America). Population Transfer: When a
government forces a large group of people out of a region, usually based on ethnicity or religion. This is also
known as an involuntary or forced migration. Impelled Migration (also called "reluctant" or "imposed" migration):
Individuals are not forced out of their country, but leave because of unfavorable situations such as warfare,
political problems, or religious persecution. Step Migration: A series of shorter, less extreme migrations from a
person's place of origin to final destinationsuch as moving from a farm, to a village, to a town, and finally to a
city. Chain Migration: A series of migrations within a family or defined group of people. A chain migration often
begins with one family member who sends money to bring other family members to the new location. Chain
migration results in migration fieldsthe clustering of people from a specific region into certain neighborhoods or
small towns. Human Migration Guide (6-8) Page 2 of 5 www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions 2005 National
Geographic Society. All rights reserved. Return Migration: The voluntary movements of immigrants back to their
place of origin. This is also known as circular migration. Seasonal Migration: The process of moving for a period
of time in response to labor or climate conditions (e.g., farm workers following crop harvests or working in cities
off-season; "snowbirds" moving to the southern and southwestern United States during winter). People Who
Migrate Emigrant: A person who is leaving a country to reside in another. Immigrant: A person who is entering a
country from another to take up new residence. Refugee: A person who is residing outside the country of his or
her origin due to fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social
group, or political opinion. Internally Displaced Person (IDP): A person who is forced to leave his or her home
region because of unfavorable conditions (political, social, environmental, etc.) but does not cross any
boundaries. Migration Stream: A group migration from a particular country, region, or city to a certain destination.
Why Do People Migrate? People move for a variety of reasons. They consider the advantages and
disadvantages of staying versus moving, as well as factors such as distance, travel costs, travel time, modes of
transportation, terrain, and cultural barriers. Push Factors: Reasons for emigrating (leaving a place) because of a
difficulty (such as a food shortage, war, flood, etc.). Pull Factors: Reasons for immigrating (moving into a place)
because of something desirable (such as a nicer climate, better food supply, freedom, etc.). Several types of
push and pull factors may influence people in their movements (sometimes at the same time), including: 1.
Environmental (e.g., climate, natural disasters) 2. Political (e.g., war) 3. Economic (e.g., work) 4. Cultural (e.g.,
religious freedom, education)
What is Urban Sprawl?
Urban sprawl is basically another word for urbanization. It refers to the migration of a population from populated
towns and cities to low density residential development over more and more rural land. The end result is the
spreading of a city and its suburbs over more and more rural land. In other words, urban sprawl is defined as low
density residential and commercial development on undeveloped land. Most of the time, people will move from
these areas to try to find better areas to live. This has been the way of the world since the beginning.
Migration and urban sprawl isnt something that is just now becoming popular, as it has been around for quite
some time. Cities and their suburbs are now becoming overcrowded because of this, but now it is time to look at
the causes and the effects of the urban sprawl, so that you can gain a better understanding of it.
The study of urbanisation has evinced interest from a wide range of experts. The multidisciplinary gamut of the
subject invokes the interest from ecologists, to urban planners and civil engineers, to sociologists, to
administrators and policy makers, and finally the common man. This is because of the multitude of activities and
processes that take place in the urban ecosystems everyday. Urban ecosystems are the consequence of the
intrinsic nature of humans as social beings to live together. Thus when the early humans evolved they settled on
the banks of the rivers that dawned the advent of civilisations. An inadvertent increase in the population

complimented with creativity, humans were able to invent wheel and light fire, created settlements and started
lived in forests too. Gradually, with the development of their communication skills by the form of languages
through speech and script, the humans effectively utilised this to make enormous progress in their life styles. All
this eventually led to the initial human settlements into villages, towns and then into cities. In the process humans
now live in complex ecosystems called urban ecosystems.
An unprecedented population growth and migration, an increased urban population and urbanisation are
inadvertent. More and more towns and cities bloomed with a change in the land use along the myriad of
landscapes and ecosystems found on earth. Today, humans can boast of living under a wide range of climatic
and environmental conditions. This has further led to humans contributing the urban centres at almost every
corner of the earth. These urban ecosystems are a consequence of urbanisation through rapid industrial centres
and blooming up of residential colonies, also became hub of economic, social, cultural, and political activities.
To understand the various components and processes that play an important role in the ecosystems are
necessary to be understood. This requires a holistic approach dealing with the various components of the
ecosystem. Looking back from the formation of the earth, the origin of life and subsequent evolution of life adds
more light into the understanding of the current significance of urban ecosystems. The role of scientific and
technological innovations in driving the urban ecosystems is an important aspect that is to be considered in the
prevalent conditions. The changing lifestyles coupled with rapid urbanisation has also implicated on the material
and energy cycles that have a participation in the urban ecosystems apart from the living organisms. Ultimately a
clear-cut understanding of the urban ecosystem will enable us to appreciate various life processes and
phenomena-taking place. The paradox of the human civilisation today is the inability to appreciate the enormous
amounts of biotic and abiotic interactions that play a role in the survival and normal operation of the various
ecosystem functions.
In the recent years "sustainable development" is a commonly used terminology among various sections of the
society subsequent to the publication of Brundtland report in 1987. The Rio 1992, Agenda 21, all endorsed this
need. The sustainable development is defined as, "development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs" (World Commission on Environment
and Development, 1987). In order to sustain development, the supply and quality of major consumables and
inputs to our daily lives and economic production - such as air, water, energy, food, raw materials, land, and the
natural environment needs to be taken care of. Land is essential because our food and raw materials originate
from them and is a habitat for flora and fauna. Similar to other resources it is a scarce commodity. Any
disturbance to this resource by way of change in land use e.g. conversion of forestland, agricultural land into
built-up, is irreversible. The use of land unsuitable for development may be unsustainable for the natural
environment as well as to the humans.
1.1 Urbanisation and Urban Sprawl
In India, with an unprecedented population growth and migration, an increased urban population and
urbanisation is inadvertent. More and more towns and cities are blooming with a change in the land use along the
highways and in the immediate vicinity of the city. This dispersed development outside of compact urban and
village centres along highways and in rural countryside is defined as sprawl (Theobald, 2001). Urbanisation is a
form of metropolitan growth that is a response to often bewildering sets of economic, social, and political forces
and to the physical geography of an area. Some of the causes of the sprawl include - population growth,
economy, patterns of infrastructure initiatives like the construction of roads and the provision of infrastructure
using public money encouraging development. The direct implication of such urban sprawl is the change in land
use and land cover of the region.

Sprawl generally infers to some type of development with impacts such as loss of agricultural land, open space,
and ecologically sensitive habitats. Also, sometimes sprawl is equated with growth of town or city (radial spread).
In simpler words, as population increases in an area or a city, the boundary of the city expands to accommodate
the growth; this expansion is considered as sprawl. Usually sprawls take place on the urban fringe, at the edge of
an urban area or along the highways.
1.1.1. Need for Studying Urban Sprawl
In industrialised countries the future growth of urban populations will be comparatively modest since their
population growth rates are low and over 80% of their population already live in urban areas. Conversely,
developing countries are in the middle of the transition process, when growth rates are highest. The exceptional
growth of many urban agglomerations in many developing countries is the result of a threefold structural change
process: the transition away from agricultural employment, high overall population growth, and increasing
urbanisation rates (Grubler, 1994). The biggest challenge for science, engineering and technology in the 21st
century is how to ensure adequate housing, sanitation and health, and transportation services in a habitable
urban environment in developing countries. Sprawl is seen as one of the potential threats for such development.
Normally, when rural pockets are connected to a city by a road, in the initial stages, development in the form of
service centres such as shops, cafeteria, etc. is seen on the roadside, which eventually become the hub of
economic activities leading to sprawl. Eventually a significant amount of upsurge could be observed along these
roads. This type of upsurge caused by a road network between urban / semi-urban / rural centres is very much
prevalent and persistent in most places in India. These regions are devoid of any infrastructure, since planners
are unable to visualise this type of growth patterns. This growth is normally left out in all government surveys
(even in national population census), as this cannot be grouped under either urban or rural centre. The
investigation of patterns of this kind of growth is very crucial from regional planning point of view to provide basic
amenities in these regions. Further, with the Prime Minister of India's pet project, "Golden Quadrilateral of
National Highways Development Project" initiative of linking villages, towns and cities and building 4-lane roads,
this investigation gains importance and significance. Prior visualising of the trends and patterns of growth enable
the planning machineries to plan for appropriate basic infrastructure facilities (water, electricity, sanitation, etc.).
The study of this kind reveals the type, extent and nature of sprawl taking place in a region and the drivers
responsible for the growth. This would help developers and town planners to project growth patterns and facilitate
various infrastructure facilities. In this direction, an attempt is made to identify the sprawl pattern, quantify sprawl
across roads in terms of Shannon's entropy, and estimate the rate of change in built-up area over a period with
the help of spatial and statistical data of nearly three decades using GIS.
1.1.2. Causes of Urban Sprawl
The process of urbanisation is fairly contributed by population growth, migration and infrastructure initiatives
resulting in the growth of villages into towns, towns into cities and cities into metros. However, in such a
phenomenon for ecologically feasible development, planning requires an understanding of the growth dynamics.
Nevertheless, in most cases there are lot of inadequacies to ascertain the nature of uncontrolled progression of
urban sprawls. Sprawl is considered to be an unplanned outgrowth of urban centres along the periphery of the
cities, along highways, along the road connecting a city, etc. Due to lack of prior planning these outgrowths are
devoid of basic amenities like water, electricity, sanitation, etc. Provision of certain infrastructure facilities like new
roads and highways, fuel such sprawls that ultimately result in inefficient and drastic change in land use affecting
the ecosystem. With respect to the role of technology in urbanisation, Berry (1990) has illustrated a new linkage
between transport infrastructure development cycles and spurts in urbanisation.

Urban infrastructure development is unlikely to keep pace with urban population growth. Both local environmental
impacts, such as deterioration of water quality in streams and an increased potential for harbouring disease
vectors, and offsite land cover changes, such as the loss of woodland and forest to meet urban fuel wood
demands, are likely to occur (Douglas, 1994).
1.1.4. Urban sprawl - spatial and temporal changes: pattern assessment
Mapping urban sprawl provides a "picture" of where this type of growth is occurring, and helps to identify the
environmental and natural resources threatened by such sprawls, and suggests the likely future directions and
patterns of sprawling growth. Analysing the sprawl over a period of time will help in understanding the nature and
growth of this phenomenon. Ultimately the power to manage a sprawl resides with local municipal governments
that vary considerably in terms of will and ability to address sprawl issues.
1.3 Modelling Aspects
Mathematical models and computational techniques merely increase the capabilities of generating information
that can be used in the decision making process. A model is a simplified representation of the physical system.
Some simplified definitions of models are - a representative of the system that attempts to reproduce its
significant elements of the system. A model is simply the symbolic mathematical form in which a physical
principle is expressed. Models are basically built by consideration of the pertinent physical principles operated
on by logic and modified by experimental judgment and plain intuition.
It is important to recognise that modeling is a part of science and part of art. The science part involves identifying
the physical principles that affect the system. The artistic part consists of deciding which of these processes are
sufficiently important with respect to the goals and objectives of the study to be included in the model and placing
the processes in a form that reflects the interaction involved. The artistic part also involves simplification of the
system so that model solutions can be achieved with a reasonable effort but without a loss of rationality or
accuracy.
Models synthesise and act as the "glue" between the perception and problem, the observational data from the
laboratory and field, and the current state of scientific understanding. However, it should always be stressed that
modellers and their models do not make management and control decisions but only provide information to the
process.
The model should and can reflect the dynamic characteristic and evolutionary nature of the environment. Its most
important function is to establish a basis for a comprehensive plan of the entire area. Given a set of criteria, the
model would analyse the alternate engineering solutions to achieve this level. Given the necessary social inputs
and constraints, it would be possible to arrive at optimal solutions between the limits of some acceptable minimal
treatment and maximum technologically practicable treatment. The main objectives of models are:
Descriptive - to integrate observations, information and theories concerning a system; to aid understanding of
system behaviour.
Predictive - to predict the response of the system to the future changes.
Optimised Allocation - to allocate certain resources in order to optimise certain conditions within the system.

Environmental modelling as one of the scientific tools for prediction and assessment is well established in the
field of environmental research (Ferda K, 1993). Environmental modelling has a considerable history and
development. The analytical approaches applied to biological and ecological problems date back to LotkaVolterra and the fields like hydrology - water quality modelling also date back to early twentieth century with
Streeter-Phelps. With the enhanced computational techniques using microcomputers, the numerical solutions to
these have become feasible. There are a variety of models in environmental studies, which will suit specific
situations. For urban growth modelling suitable models can be used as effective tools in management of urban
growth and population growth leading to land pressures. Depending on the type of method employed in the
construction of equations, the models can be classified into four types
i.

Analytical Models - These are the models, which involve construction of solutions of partial differential
equations, which represent the urban systems and the land use changes considered spatially.

ii.

Numerical Models - These are the models in which an attempt has been made to represent the natural
systems and to solve the equations, which describe the conventional, numerical methods.

iii.

Physical Models - These models involve construction of physical system at a smaller scale. These
types of models are least employed because of the lack of knowledge of scaling relationships, and thus
limitations experienced in simulating urban growth processes

iv.

Cartographic Models - A cartographic model is a graphical representation of the data and analytical
procedures followed methodically in a specific study. The purpose of a cartographic model is to help the
analyst organise and structure the necessary procedures as well as identify all the data required for the
analysis.

There are two basic reasons for constructing representations of urban systems through mathematical modeling.
First is the need to increase the level of understanding of the cause-effect relationships operative in urban growth
dynamics, and secondly, to apply that increased understanding to aid the decision making process for the urban
growth management.
GIS serves theoreticians, programmers, and practitioners alike. An understanding of GIS modeling is important
for practitioners who will create the models; theoreticians, who develop the concepts of new models; and
programmers, who must code to make the models work inside a GIS. The GIS automates geographic concepts,
assists in decision-making, helps explain distributions and can assist in hypothesis formulation and testing. These
tasks can be applied to a wide range of both practitioners and theoreticians by allowing them to manipulate
portions of the earth that are stored as map data in the computer. The current popularity of GIS is in the multitude
of domains in which they can be applied and in their ability to automate simple but repetitive map based tasks as
well as complex ones (DeMers, 2002). Especially these tools enable the user to collate, integrate, analyse and
model a large amount of spatial data along with their attribute information. Harnessing the total potential of the
GIS in environmental modeling rests with the user capable of understanding the concepts of environmental
systems and applications of GIS.
The real world cannot solely be represented in two dimensions as is commonly accepted. This certainly is a very
limiting view of the reality that we perceive around us. Most modelling in GIS has been two dimensional
especially in the context of urban planning. The development in the field of "fuzzy logic" and "artificial neural
networks" is providing the option of incorporating indeterminate and ambiguous information from the real world
into GIS. This will be particularly useful while considering the cognitive models and individual perception of
people and incorporating them for reference into GIS (Agarwal, P., 2000).
1.4

Study Objectives:

The main objectives of this study are

Identify the patterns of urban sprawl spatially and temporally;
Analyse the urban sprawl pattern through remote sensing and geographic information system techniques;
Analyse causal factors of urban sprawl, and
Model urban sprawl

Causes of Urban Sprawl

Urban sprawl can be caused by a variety of different things. These causes will mainly include:

Lower Land Rates: Lower cost land and houses in the outer suburbs of the cities, because the centers
of urban development have really made people want to stop settling in these areas and want to venture further
out.
Improved Infrastructure: There is increased spending on certain types of infrastructures, including
roads and electricity. This is something that hasnt always been available, and there are still some areas that
dont have these luxuries. That doesnt mean that they arent working on it.
Rise in Standard of Living: There are also increases in standards of living and average family
incomes, which means that people have the ability to pay more to travel and commute longer distances to work
and back home.
Lack of Urban Planning: People love to find areas that are less trafficked and more calm, which leads
them to sprawl out to other sections of the town. Unprecedented development, cutting of trees, loss of green
cover, long traffic jams, poor infrastructure force people to move out to new areas.
Lower House Tax Rates: Cities will usually have high property taxes, and you can usually avoid these
taxes by living in the outer suburbs because the taxes are usually lower than they would be in other situations.
Rise in Population Growth: Another factor that contributes towards urban sprawl is rise in
population growth. As number of people in a city grows beyond capacity, the local communities continues to
spread farther and farther from city centers.
Consumer Preferences: People in high income groups have stronger preferences towards larger
homes, more bedrooms, bigger balconies and bigger lawns. This also causes urban sprawl as this option is not
available in crowded cities. People generally look out for low-density residential areas where they can get home
according to their preference.

Effects of Urban Sprawl

Now, we will take a look at the effects of urban sprawl, now that we have taken a closer look at the causes of it.

Some of the effects include:

Increase in Public Expenditure: They can actually play a part in the increases of public costs, because
these changes in infrastructures and building must actually be paid for by someone- and it is usually the tax
payers money that pays for it.
Increased Traffic: Populations will begin to use their cars more often, which means that there is more
traffic on the roads, and there is also more air pollution and more auto accidents that you have to worry with.
Health Issues: When people use their vehicles, even to go to a very short distance, people are going to
be more overweight and are also going to have to deal with ailments such as high blood pressure and other
diseases that come about with obesity.
Environmental Issues: Sprawls can also cause certain environmental issues that you may want to be
aware of. In fact, when you think about going out to develop these lands you will have to worry about the wildlife
that lives in these lands. You will be displacing them, and it can really cause a ripple in the environment.
Impact on Social Lives: When people move further out, they also have an impact on their social lives.
They dont have neighbors that live as close, which means that they wont really stay as social as they should.
This isnt always the case, but it is something that should be taken note of.
As you can see, urban sprawl is something that will continue to occur as long as we live here on earth. It isnt
something that is going to change, but over time the more rural areas are going to become more populated
because of development and change. This can be considered a good thing at times, but others view it as a bad
thing. You also have to consider the fact that it will actually play a part in having to cut down more trees and tear
up the environment, and in this aspect it is not a good thing.
On a positive note, it may lead to less overcrowding- but it wont happen overnight. Its clear that urban sprawl is
something that people will consider to be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on their own beliefs systems.
You may find it to be something that is ideal, while others may want to steer clear of it. It is the inevitable, thats
for sure, but that doesnt mean that it has to be rushed into, and it should happen naturally.
Image credit: Ivee , scaredpoet