A Case Study of Western Maharashtra with Detection and Removal of Cloud Influence: Land Use and Land Cover Change Detection

Abstract

The Western Ghats (Sahyadri Range) and Western Coastal (Konkan) regions are India’s most important units of Maharashtra State. This area is mainly comprised Dapoli, Mahabaleshwar, Pune, Kolhapur, Satara, Sangli, Raigad, Ratnagiri, Chiplun, etc. This case study aims to observe the land use and land cover change detection after heavy rainfall of three days duration from July 22nd to July 24th 2021. This Disaster caused many landslides in Western Maharashtra. Images of Land Cover for study are extracted from Sentinel-2 MSI from 2021 to 2022. Minimum distance and Spectral angle mapping classifiers are used to generate the classification map. Classification of Cloud and Non-Cloud area is performed with a Maximum Likelihood classifier. Cloud influence is removed by using Reference Image acquired through Sentinel-2 MSI. The total area utilized for the study is 12056.04 km2 and six LULC classes are used in the classification. Classification Results obtained exhibit the change in Built-up Area from 2086.72 to 1289.51 km2, Agriculture sector from 1547.42 to 2115.78 km2, Plantation from 3999.67 to 4998.79 km2, Forest Area from 495.82 to 1600.25 km2, Bare-Soil from 3027.59 to 986.91 km2, Water Bodies from 898.82 to 1064.8 km2. Findings and analysis obtained from the statistical analysis show the need for strategies to be designed for continual LULC in Western Maharashtra.