Land use land cover change detection in Yellapur taluk of Uttara Kannada district using remotesensing and geographic information system techniques

Abstract

The present study was carried out with the objective of assessment of land use land cover (LULC) changedetection in Yellapur taluk of Uttara Kannada district between the years 1998 to 2018. The satellite data was downloadedfrom United States Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Explorer website such as Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper for the year1998 and Landsat 7 Enhanced thematic mapper plus for the year 2018. The shape file of Yellapur taluk was created in ArcGIS and the images were clipped for the study area. Then the ground truth data for different land use land cover classes wascollected with the help of GPS and LULC mapping was done under supervised classification using ERDAS IMAGINE forthe year 1998 and 2018. The different land use and land cover classes identified were dense forest, sparse forest agriculturalland, horticulture, settlements and water bodies. The results revealed that the change occurred over 20 years indicated thatarea under dense forest decreased by 4.62 per cent and area under sparse forest increased by 2.15 per cent. Agriculture landwas decreased by 0.55 per cent, horticultural land increased by 1.55 per cent, settlements increased by 1.4 per cent andwater bodies increased by 0.07 per cent. The change in LULC is due to increased population and settlements, peopledepend upon forests which builds pressure on forests. This investigation suggest that, there is a need to protect the existingforest and to increase green cover where anthropogenic activities exists. Remote sensing and GIS techniques provides quick,accurate and reliable data through which timely monitoring of the forests and other natural resources