Land use / land cover change analysis of Kasargode district using remote sensing and GIS

Master of Science in Geoinformatics 2013-2015 EXT Radhakrishnan T M.S. Saran (Scientist C) "NATPAC, Thiruvananthapuram,"

Analysis on spatial and temporal Land Use/ Land Cover (LU/LC) changes at regional scales is essential for a wide range of applications such as landslide, erosion, land planning, global warming, hydrologic phenomenon and their effects on ecological processes, runoff, soil erosion sedimentation and soil conditions etc.. The LU/LC alterations (based especially on human activities), are observed to negatively affect the patterns of climate, natural hazards and socio-economic dynamics in global and local scale. In the present study an attempt has been made to analyze the temporal changes of Land Use/ Land Cover and vegetation by using Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). For this purpose, firstly a supervised classification technique was applied to satellite images acquired for the years 2000, 2005 and 2013 and the outputs were compared to derive information on changes that occurred over past 13 years time periods of time. In the second part of the study, the land cover changes were analyzed by vegetation sensitivity analysis using NDVI classification. The results revealed that, distinct changes have occurred on the major Land Use/ Land Cover types during investigation periods. The land use land cover categories shows an increase in built up and mixed crop with settlement areas where as water body, dense Vegetation, plantation and sparse vegetation and barren land shows a fluctuating trend.