Informatics Publishing Limited

Abstract

Land use and Land cover are linked to climate and other environmental changes in a complex way such as, exchange of Greenhouse gases between plants, soil and atmosphere. Land is becoming scarce community due to immense agriculture in other purposes. Any change in land use/ land cover affect ecosystem, biodiversity, agriculture productivity and other goods and services of the society. Hence, information on land use/ land cover and possibilities of their optimal use is essential for the selection, planning and implementation of land use methods to meet the increasing demands for basic human needs and welfare. Various processes influence the speed of the change and the type of land use.

Over the past few years, Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttarakhand having total geographical area 3055 sq.kms. has found tremendous land use change due to various Industrial and urban growth. Udham Singh Nagar is located in Tarai area of Kumaon region. Availability of resources, vast land, infinite raw material, good transportation facilities and a well-know excess to market has attracted a number of industrialists towards Udham Singh Nagar and consequently the good agricultural land of Udham Singh Nagar has been converted into an established industrial area. That’s why it identified as industrial district of Uttarakhand. Availability of various satellite sensors at different spectral and temporal resolution plays an important role in generating information about latest land use/land cover pattern in area and in dynamic changes. The information in digital form extracted from satellite data under Geographical Information System (GIS) to provide a suitable platform for data analysis, update and retrieval.

The objective of the present study was to know about the transformation of various land use/ land cover at different time period and also to understand the dynamics and impact of changes. In this study Landsat TM 1990 and LISS III 2013-14 (Rabi, Kharif and Zaid season) has been used to map the various thematic information (Land use, wasteland, wetland, forest cover, soil map and agriculture land) and subsequently Land use dynamics of different land cover changes were identified using onscreen image interpretation, tonal and texture characteristics of the image, various digital image processing techniques and by using spatial modeling. The study reveals that during 24 years extreme change in agricultural land due to urban growth. Finally the eight land-use types are identified as- Dense forest, Open forest, Scrub, Agriculture, Fallow land, Water body, Settlement and Sand. A significant change in land-use is observed with in the area over the study period. The results shows that there is a significant decrease in Agriculture (about 6.51 %) which can be correlated to the conversion of agricultural land into industrial/residential land (18.76%), mainly in the Rudrapur area of Udham Singh Nagar district. Open forest increased by 21.13% which can be associated with conversions from dense forest (7.3%). Increase in the exposure of scrub about 7.13% and decrease in the extent of water body about 12.66%. 

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