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The aim of this research is to analyse the process of land transformation for an upazila (subdistrict) of Dhaka, the Capital of Bangladesh, using image interpretation techniques and GIS approaches. The analysis spansa time period at decenniali ntervals from 1951 (predevelopmenpt hase)t o 2001 (urbanisation stage). The upazila is considered in Bangladesh to be the main focal point of government planning, land management, environment and development policies. Savar Upazila has been selected as the study area because of its rapidly changing population density, socioeconomicp henomenaa nd land use/coverc hanges ince the independencefr om the Great Britain. The major sources of high resolution (up to a 2.4 metre resolution) remotely sensed data are panchromatic and infrared aerial photography (1953,1984 and 1990); CORONA K114 and K114b spy satellite panoramic film (1962 and 1972) and IRS-ID panchromatic imagery (2000); and DGPS based GCP coordinates of 2001. Digitally converted conventional and Historical administrative, settlement, planning, revenue and topographic maps have been digitised and used at a large-scale of up to 1: 3,960. Moreover, the enhanced 1951,1961,1974,1981,1991 and 2001 population censuses are used in parallel to help interpret images and related factors. In-depth survey and participatory approaches were used during the fieldwork at plot level to help interpret and develop a weighted land cover model and to understand factors responsible for change. In grid format, compatible to temporal image data, detailed land value data were converted into gridded format compatible with a decadal time-series of imagery and from the field for the early 1950s to 2001 integrated with mauza maps. The attribute data have been used as if it was an image data layer in order to visualise land value data. The results illustrate that significant and visible land transformations and population change have occurred over the last half-century from a completely river-dependent countryside to a modem road network orientation, with a change from the byde (low-lying flood-prone area) to chala (highland flood-free area) land economies. A spatio-temporal land transformation index is proposed to explain the complex micro-scale change that have taken place using land use and land value data. Remotely sensed data provides the context with which to interpret past and present land cover and land use. This study shows the importance of modem GIS techniques to integrate enhanced field and secondary data/maps with raster data as well as for mapping historical images and information on the future development, land reform/management, environmental study and planning in Bangladesh.

This thesis explores ways in which women's agency has been theorised and developed within the Spanish city in general and Barcelona in particular between the Transition and the early twenty-first century. It argues that women and feminists in particular have worked to change city cultures for the benefit of their gender, despite the tendency to conceal such agency in both feminist urbanism and dominant accounts of the regeneration of Barcelona. It maintains that women's positive experiences and the effects of their agency on the city, as well as the disadvantages they encounter, should be the focus of analysis of city cultures. Chapter One explores the ways in which some contemporary feminism have come to focus on the city as a site of female agency. Chapters Two and Three explore ways in which women have used and resignified urban resources to press for greater autononomy and for their contributions to city life to be valued more highly. These chapters also acknowledge the ways in which women have asserted their agency by both contesting unitary narratives of city life, and by challenging inequitable forms of urban organization that do not take account of their needs and aspirations. The focus on revealing women's agency where it has been concealed or misrecognized in dominant accounts of city cultures continues in Chapter Four with an exploration of what some leading Spanish feminist webmistresses have contributed to the development of the virtual city. Virtual cities are conceived of as web sites that mediate information relating to pre-existing Spanish cities and as those that use the city as a metaphor to organize the site's construction. It is argued that, dystopic readings of the nature of virtual cities notwithstanding, several Spanish feminists use such spaces ethically, with the express purpose of supporting other women.

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