Monitoring of current land use pattern of Ramsar designated Kolleru Wetland, India using geospatial technologies

Abstract

Aim: The present study is an attempt to analyze the land use pattern of Kolleru Lake in and around by using the techniques of remote sensing and GIS to detect the temporal changes of the Kolleru Lake. Methodology: The 1938 and 1967 years topographic sheets and Landsat-5 TM of 1997 and Resoucesat-2 LISS 4 of 2017 satellite images were used and analyzed by the latest version of Arc GIS 10.4 and ERDAS IMAGINE 2016 (Version 16.00). Unsupervised and supervised classification was done for 1997 and 2017 images, respectively. Results: It was estimated from the topographic map of 1938 that the total lake boundary area was 230.15 km2. Digital image processing of 2017 satellite data revealed that the lake area of 76.9 km2 (32.45%) only remained degraded, extensively colonized by macrophytes. The land use/land cover maps of 1997 and 2017 revealed that lake area was significantly occupied by aquaculture which amounted to 84 km2 (36.53%) and 56 km2 (24.35%), respectively, and no aquaculture activity was reported from 1938 and 1967 toposheets. Interpretation: The geospatial analysis data gives accurate and reliable information and associated factors. The spatio-temporal analysis data provide a significant foundation for monitoring activities in other lake systems, and are applicable to monitoring wetland use patterns in other sites of international importance.