GIS and Remote Sensing in Urban Development Planning: Issues and Challenges of Developing World

Urban Planning involves objective or target based process adopted for sustainable urban development. It involves analyzing and predicting the urban environment quantitatively and qualitatively to identify and evaluate alternative policy options leading to a beautiful urban living environment. The quantitative increase in the number of urban centers and populations do not suffice the goal of planning [1]. In the developing countries in spite of the increase in the number of cities and the urban population, quality of urban life is sub standard. For a good quality of life in the cities, smart planning is required. Here GIS (Geographical Information System), GPS (Global Positioning System) and RS (Remote Sensing) come handy as necessary tools and techniques in urban development planning. The digital maps prepared with the help of such modern techniques are scale free. Thus, they can be superimposed to study physical, social, cultural and economic phenomena. The lack of capital and skilled human resource in the use of new technology of GIS, GPS and Remote Sensing in the developing or under developed world is making things difficult. All the softwares and hardwares required by them are imported from developed countries which are less user friendly and developing world is totally dependent on developed world for any technical assistance. An attempt has been in this research paper to discuss the issues and challenges encountered in adoption of the modern tool and techniques of GIS, GPS and Remote Sensing in better planning for the urban development in developing world.