Using Landsat satellite data for assessing the land use and land cover change in Kashmir valley

Land use and land cover (LULC) change has been one of the most immense and perceptible transformations of the earth's surface. Evaluating LULC change at varied spatial scales is imperative in wide range of perspectives such as environmental conservation, resource management, land use planning, and sustainable development. This work aims to examine the land use and land cover changes in the Kashmir valley between the time periods from 1992-2001-2015 using a set of compatible moderate resolution Landsat satellite imageries. Supervised approach with maximum likelihood classifier was adopted for the classification and generation of LULC maps for the selected time periods. Results reveal that there have been substantial changes in the land use and cover during the chosen time periods. In general, three land use and land cover change patterns were observed in the study area: (1) consistent increase of the area under marshy, built-up, barren, plantation, and shrubs; (2) continuous decrease in agriculture and water; (3) decrease (1992-2001) and increase (2001-2015) in forest and pasture classes. In terms of the area under each LULC category, most significant changes have been observed in agriculture (-), plantation (+), built-up (+), and water (-); however, with reference to percent change within each class, the maximum variability was recorded in built-up (198.45%), plantation (87.98%), pasture (- 71%), water (- 48%) and agriculture (- 28.85%). The massive land transformation is largely driven by anthropogenic actions and has been mostly adverse in nature, giving rise to multiple environmental issues in the ecologically sensitive Kashmir valley.