Using Landsat satellite data for assessing the land use and land cover change in Kashmir valley
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Using Landsat satellite data for assessing the land use and land cover change in Kashmir valley Akhtar Alam
. M. Sultan Bhat . M. Maheen
Ó The Author(s) 2019
Abstract Land use and land cover (LULC) change has been one of the most immense and perceptible transformations of the earth’s surface. Evaluating LULC change at varied spatial scales is imperative in wide range of perspectives such as environmental conservation, resource management, land use planning, and sustainable development. This work aims to examine the land use and land cover changes in the Kashmir valley between the time periods from 1992–2001–2015 using a set of compatible moderate resolution Landsat satellite imageries. Supervised approach with maximum likelihood classifier was adopted for the classification and generation of LULC maps for the selected time periods. Results reveal that there have been substantial changes in the land use and cover during the chosen time periods. In general, three land use and land cover change patterns were observed in the study area: (1) consistent increase of the area under marshy, built-up, barren, plantation, and shrubs; (2) continuous decrease in agriculture and water; (3) decrease (1992–2001) and increase (2001–2015) in forest and pasture classes. In terms of the area under each LULC category, most significant changes have A. Alam (&) Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK e-mail: [email protected] A. Alam M. S. Bhat M. Maheen Department of Geography and Regional Development, University of Kashmir, Srinagar 190006, India
been observed in agriculture (-), plantation (?), builtup (?), and water (-); however, with reference to percent change within each class, the maximum variability was recorded in built-up (198.45%), plantation (87.98%), pasture (- 71%), water (- 48%) and agriculture (- 28.85%). The massive land transformation is largely driven by anthropogenic actions and has been mostly adverse in nature, giving rise to multiple environmental issues in the ecologically sensitive Kashmir valley. Keywords Land use and land cover Change detection Landsat data Classification Kashmir valley
Introduction Land use and land cover (LULC) are two transposable terms; however, used with different connotations in land change science. Land use refers to ‘human activities on and in relation to the land, which are usually not directly visible from the imagery’ (Lo 1986), while as land cover describes, ‘the vegetation and artificial constructions covering the land surface’ (Burley 1961). Land use and land cover matrix is intrinsic element of the landscape, having direct and indirect links with varied geophysical and socioeconomic processes. The rate and spatial scale of human
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GeoJournal
alterations to land surface mostly in the form of land use and land cover change are unprecedented and so invasive that they enormously transformed a large proportion of the planet’s land surface, affecting key aspects
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