Land use and land cover change assessment in Balodabazar-Bhatapara district of Chhattisgarh using remote sensing and GIS techniques

Abstract

Understanding the patterns of land use/land cover (LULC), Mapping and monitoring of LULC is vital for effective water resource management practice in a watershed. Multi-temporal land LULC change analysis is essential for agriculture, land, water and environmental planning and recourses management. Timely and accurate detection of LULC change is also important for the macro and micro level sustainable development plan of any watershed. Remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) has been proven as an effective tool for identification of LULC patterns in a particular region and watershed. This study examines the spatial temporal change trend in LULC in the study area of Balodabazar- Bhatapara district of Chhattisgarh state. Using remote sensing data, socio-economic data, and field observations, spatiotemporal dynamics of land use and land cover changes in the study area has been studied. Geospatial data of SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) DEM (Digital Elevation Model), LISS-III and Sentinel-2 were used for this study. Multitemporal satellite imagery was used for the land use land cover change using IRS-P6 LISS III and Sentinel-2 for the year 2008 and 2021, respectively. The supervised classification technique was used for change detection analysis. The study area was classified into six classes; water bodies, agriculture, settlements, barren land, fallow land, and shrubs/natural vegetation and study was found that among the six identified classes water bodies, agriculture and settlements increased positively from 1.7% to 3.5% , 33.4% to 52.3% and 17.9% to 21.5% respectively while, barren land, fallow land, and shrubs/natural vegetation decreased from 2.8% to 2.2%, 18.8% to 14.8% and 25.4% to 5.7% over the last 13 years. This study might support land-use planners and policy makers to adopt the suitable land use management option for the project area.