Landscape transformation of an urban wetland in Kashmir Himalaya, India using high-resolution remote sensing data, geosp
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Landscape transformation of an urban wetland in Kashmir Himalaya, India using high-resolution remote sensing data, geospatial modeling, and ground observations over the last 5 decades (1965–2018) Irfan Rashid
&
Sheikh Aneaus
Received: 4 April 2020 / Accepted: 6 September 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Wetlands are among the most vulnerable and dynamic ecosystems of the world. Any change in the anthropogenic footprint or climate affects the health of these pristine ecologically and socioeconomically important ecosystems. In the present study, land use land cover changes (LULCC) and fragmentation of natural landscape changes in an urban wetland, Khushalsar, located in the heart of the Srinagar City, were assessed using high-resolution satellite data, geospatial modeling approach, and ground observations over the last ~ 5 decades (1965 and 2018). The spatiotemporal changes in LULC of the wetland were assessed for 3 time periods that include 1965–1980, 1980–2018, and 1965–2018. Additionally, landscape fragmentation tool (LFT) was used to quantify fragmentation of land cover. The analysis of LULCC indicated that built-up areas in the vicinity of the wetland increased by 510% between 1965 and 2018. The aquatic vegetation and marshy lands increased by 150% and 33% respectively. The area under agriculture, plantation, open water, and barren lands decreased mostly taken over by built-up areas. Within the wetland, the area under open water spread reduced by 75% while the aquatic vegetation increased by 150% from 1965 to 2018. The built-up areas including roads also showed a substantial increase. The LFT analysis revealed four categories of landscapes i.e.,
I. Rashid (*) : S. Aneaus Department of Geoinformatics, University of Kashmir, Hazratbal, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir 190006, India e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected]
patch, edge, perforated, and core areas. Since the natural land cover types were taken over by land use predominantly built-up areas, the core natural areas and perforated landscapes in the Khushalsar shrunk by 34% and 94% respectively indicating fragmentation of natural environment. The lack of sewage treatment facility, reckless unplanned urbanization within and in the vicinity of the wetland, is responsible for the degradation of the Khushalsar wetland. Keywords Land system changes . Geospatial analysis . Landscape fragmentation . Khushalsar wetland
Introduction Wetlands are among the most threatened (Batzer and Wu 2019) and sensitive ecosystems (Mitsch et al. 2009). Wetlands provide a host of ecological and economic services to the human society (Zhao et al. 2005). These include flood control (Rezaie et al. 2020), groundwater recharge (Winter 1999), nutrient removal from water (Raich and Schlesinger 1992), maintaining river flows (Bullock and Acreman 2003), and food and fodder (Heimlich 1998; Jenkins et al. 2010). Wetland ecosystems act as important sinks of carbon and play a crucial role in terrestrial carbon sequestration (Kraiem 2002). Wetlan
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