Assessment of land use/land cover and its dynamic using geospatial techniques in pudukkottai district of tamil nadu, india

Abstract

Identifying the land use/land cover pattern and its changes plays a considerable role in assessing the impact of man’s activity towards natural ecosystem. This study focuses on the agrarian land use change over the study region of Pudukkottai district which is situated in the semi-arid region of Tamil Nadu, India. Agriculture is one of the significant sources of income for the economy of the country and most of the people engaged in agriculture and its related activity in the study area. It needs deep monitoring of the changes in the agricultural land use at time to time to prevent mismanagement and poverty among the people of the Pudukkottai district. The present research observes the land use change of agriculture for two periods i.e. 2005 – 2010 and 2010 – 2015 using Landsat images from USGS. To execute the land use characteristics, the study adopted four indicators they are net total area of change, annual area of change, annual rate of change and dynamic degree. The study concludes that maximum changes happened during 2010 – 2015 and minimum changes happened during 2005-2015. Maximum of agricultural land has changed into wasteland followed by built-up land and wetland.