• Nisha Singh
• Kulwinder Singh

The rapid pace of urbanization in India’s National Capital Region (NCR) over the past three decades has triggered substantial transformations in land use and land cover (LULC), posing challenges to ecological integrity, food security, and sustainable regional development. This study investigates the spatial and temporal patterns of LULC change across NCR between 1991 and 2011 and evaluates their implications for agricultural provisioning ecosystem services. The research aims to quantify land transitions using multi-temporal satellite imagery and assess the associated decline in crop productivity using a spatial modeling approach. Landsat imagery for the years 1991, 2001, and 2011 was processed and classified using supervised methods with the maximum likelihood algorithm. Changes in LULC categories were analyzed at the sub-regional level to capture the heterogeneity of urban growth and its ecological consequences. In addition, the InVEST Crop Production Model was applied to estimate spatial patterns of agricultural output between 2002 and 2012 using MODIS-derived crop phenology and Fourier-based time-series analysis. The results indicate that built-up area across NCR more than doubled during the study period, expanding from 1,606.5 km² to 3,279.7 km². This expansion came largely at the expense of agricultural land, which declined by over 2,200 km². High-yield crop zones, once concentrated in peri-urban districts such as Meerut, Baghpat, and Ghaziabad, diminished significantly by 2012. The findings highlight a clear trade-off between urban expansion and provisioning services, especially in ecologically and socio-economically sensitive transition zones. The study underscores the need for ecosystem-informed spatial planning and policies that protect peri-urban agricultural landscapes. Tools such as InVEST can support proactive land governance by quantifying trade-offs and guiding evidence-based decision-making. This research contributes to a growing body of work on urban-rural land dynamics and provides a replicable framework for assessing ecosystem service losses in megaregions of the Global South.

Land use change; Ecosystem services; Remote sensing; Crop modeling; Urbanization; NCR; InVEST

"Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Land Use Change and Ecosystem Services in the National Capital Region, India (1991-2011)", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.12, Issue 4, page no.l113-l126, April-2025, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2504B17.pdf

"Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Land Use Change and Ecosystem Services in the National Capital Region, India (1991-2011)", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.12, Issue 4, page no. ppl113-l126, April-2025, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2504B17.pdf