Impact Of Informal Settlements On Urban Environment

Informal settlements are common phenomena in metro as well as in medium and small cities of developing countries. The absence of reliable and timely information about the locations, form and morphology of these areas creates difficulties in monitoring of these areas as well as facilitating proper decision making and planning. In India, population increase in urban centers is much faster than in rural areas because of rural to urban migration. This chapter discusses the various aspects related to informal settlements and their impact on urban environment. The first part of the chapter discusses the different aspects including definition, present scenario etc., related to the informal settlements. Second pail elaborates the potential of state-of-the-art technology to circumvent with this problem, which includes image processing operations, interpretation key etc. Third part of the chapter analyses the impact of informal settlements on urban environment. Poorly developed areas threaten our environment, health and quality of life in numerous ways i.e. Physical environment (includes ecological aspects), Aesthetical environment (includes qualitative aspects), Social-economic environment (includes psychological aspects).