2. vegetatIon of Mysore

Karnataka is building a new strategy that is helpful for tier 2 cities development, but poses a challenge to develop the city in a planned manner and avoid sprawl in the outskirts. To scientifically understand the process of growth of the cities is critical to avoid drastic irreversible landscape transformations. The combined methods of remote sensing, land cover and land use change, are effective decision-support tools to analyze and compare the impacts of classical urban sprawl patterns in Mysore. There has been an enormous growth in built-up area during 1999 to 2009 it can be observed that there was 514% of growth from 1999 to 2010 whereas growth of built up was 1685 % in past four decades.

Vegetation cover declined by 923% in past four decades. Other category also had an enormous increase and covers 166 % of the land use. The drastic land cover transformations necessitate an effective adaptive plans and schemes to mitigate the impacts and to improve conditions of the cities. Visulaisation of the growth considering cultural and industrial evolution helps in the better planning and decision making.

Vegetation types

The forests can be classified as dry deciduous forest and scrub forests.

I. Southern - Tropical dry deciduous forest (Group 4A-C2 of Champion and Seth)

II. Scrub forest (Group 5 Sub-group 5B-DS1) Southern tropical dry deciduous forest:

This type of forest (Figure 8a) is confined to HD Kote range. This tract comprises of the following species, Acacia catechu, Adina cordifolia, Anogeissus latifolia, Cassia fistula, Chloroxylon sp., Dendrocalamus strictus, Emblica offcinalis,Randiadumetorum,Santalumalbum,Terminalia chebula, Zizyphus spp. The rainfall received is mostly from southwest monsoon averaging 700 mm. Scrub forest: This type of forest (Figure 8b) is found in HD Kote and Sargur ranges and some of the important species found in this forest type are Acacia catechu, Albizzia odorotissima, Azadirachta indica, Cassia auriculata, Cassia fistula, Diospyros melanoxylon, Diospyros montana, Elaedendron glaucum, Gardenia gummifera, Madhuca indica, Santalum album, Terminalia chebula, Vitex altissima, Zizyphus xylopyrus and thorny species like Pterolobium indicum and Randia dumetorum (Srinivasan, 2002).

Mysuru city’s land use has only 2.51% of space reserved for green and open spaces where in the UDPFI guideline directs at least 15-20% of the land use to have a green and open spaces. Mysuru city has around 343 Undeveloped and 178 Developed parks as per the records of Mysore City Corporation.

That is, only 34% of the Parks and Open spaces in the city of Mysuru is developed and another 66% is yet to develop and many developed parks are not maintained well and failed in attracting the users and providing the user satisfaction (Primary survey data).

The Parks and Open Spaces of a city constitute 788.2 hectares and the per capita green space is just 0.000112 sqm which is a major issue of the city. A per capita of at least 10-15 sqm of public green spaces has to be available in an urban area directs World health organisation. Almost 50% of the residents do not have an access to the urban green spaces within their walking distance (300-500 m). And the distribution of the urban green spaces is also unsatisfactory. Accessibility of UGS for the residents and its evaluation can be considered as an important aspect of analysing the urban green spaces.

There are patches of schist in Tirumalkudlu Narasipura areas. HD Kote area is covered with red shallow gravelly soil. The summer season is from March to end of May and is followed by the southwest monsoon season that lasts up to the end of September. October and November may be termed as the retreating monsoon season. The annual rainfall is 600 mm to 700 mm which is spread over a period of seven calendar months from the latter half of April to the end of October.

October is the rainiest month (month of maximum rainfall). The rainfall received from June to September constitutes only 40% of the annual rainfall (Srinivasan, 2002). There are 3 main reservoirs (Figure 7a): Tharaka, Kabini and Nugu along with other small water bodies (lakes and ponds - figure 7b) such as Hebbala etc. throughout the Division. There is also the presence of Nugu and Kabini water channels (Figures 7c and d) flowing out of the reservoirs and passing through many villages. All the water bodies are maintained by the inland water department. Nugu reservoir surrounded by mountains is in turn connected to Bandipur National Park (Srinivasan, 2002).