Identification of Land Use Land Cover (LULC) Changes Using Geo-Spatial Tools for Indrayani River Basin

Abstract

The hydrological and morphological processes of Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) have an impact on watersheds. Accurately measuring historical and current LULC characteristics is essential for determining the appraisal and management approach of a watershed. This study examines the LULC changes that occurred between 2000 and 2020. It predicts the changes in LULC for the period from 2020 to 2040 in the watershed using the MOLUSCE QGIS plug-in. The LULC classification in the Indrayani River Watershed utilizes remote sensing data from the cloud-free Sentinel 2B and Landsat series, namely the L5 TM and L7 ETM plus. The Kappa (K) coefficient is utilized to assess the accuracy of LULC maps, yielding an approximate accuracy of 77%. Over the past two decades, there has been a notable growth in the amount of settlement inside the watershed, with the proportion rising from 7.31% to 10.24% of the total area. The expansion of urban areas has occurred through the encroachment upon agricultural land and vegetation cover, leading to the transformation of vegetation cover into urban areas. The present study examines the alterations in land use and land cover resulting from the rapid process of urbanization occurring within the designated study region.