Urban Growth and Urban Land Use Dynamics of Pokhara City, Nepal: Challenge to Urban Sustainability?

Over the recent decades, Pokhara has evolved immensely in its urbanization, urban functions, and administrative roles. With tremendous changes in land use pattern, environment, and socio-economic features, the city now is facing a challenge to its sustainable urban development. This paper analyses changes in land use pattern, demographic feature, and development activities vis-à-vis urbanization of Pokhara city. Data were gathered from satellite images of different years, field verification, and ancillary sources. The findings show that the city has evolved immensely from mere a trading and administrative centre to a tourism hub and a provincial capital. There has been a rapid increase in the urban population over the last three decades due mainly to boundary expansion and in-migration of the population. Availability of financial investment opportunity, boost in real estate business and change in socio-political phenomena were other factors of rapid urbanization. These changes have caused haphazard use of land, rising air pollution, and degrading environment, which thus call for immediate measures to be initiated regarding the environmental sustainability of Pokhara city.