MONITORING SPATIO-TEMPORAL DYNAMICS OF LAND USE/LAND COVER CHANGES USING REMOTE SENSING AND GIS - A CASE STUDY OF ERNAKULAM DISTRICT, INDIA

Urbanisation is presently one of the most serious environmental challenges, spreading at unprecedented rates and intensifying across all countries, with far-reaching implications for ecosystems, biodiversity, and human well-being. Rapid increases in activities such as urbanisation, socioeconomic activity, and environmental change create changes in land use and land cover. Therefore, it is essential to comprehend LULC change to assess its effects on hydrology. The study reveals that the agricultural land area reduced from 56.53% in the year 2006 to 50.41% in the year 2016, which shows the urbanisation and the conversion of the vacant lands to the build-up lands. It is clear from the data that there was an increase in the built-up area from 8.27% in the year 2006 to 14.80% in the year 2016. In 2006, the area under the water body class was 189.19 km2. Also, the wasteland area reduced from 1.77% in the year 2006 to 0.87% in the year 2016, which shows the effect of the vacant land being converted into built-up areas. The purpose of this study was to evaluate land use/land cover changes in Kerala's Ernakulam district using remote sensing and geospatial information system (GIS) techniques. This research includes LULC classification and accuracy assessment. The LULC classification had overall accuracy (OA) of 81.49%, 81.87%, and 82.79% respectively. The overall kappa coefficient was 0.75, 0.75, and 0.77 respectively for the year 2006-06, 2011-11, and 2016-16.