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Mapping and Analyzing Land Use/Land Cover Changes: A Case Study of Tawa River Basin, Hoshangabad District, MP, India

Pradeep Kumar Rajput*

Land use and land cover is dynamic process to understand the anthropogenic activity impact on land and other environment attribute that leads to other problems and land use change are important for identifying vulnerable areas for change and cause a problem in the ecosystem services. This study analyzed the status of LULC changes and key drivers of change for the last 20 years through a combination of remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) approach, understanding of LULC patterns and drivers in the Tawa river basin. Five major LULC types (Forest cover, Agriculture, Water body, Range land and Settlement) from Landsat images of 1999, 2009, and 2019 were mapped. The results demonstrated that Agriculture and Forest constituted the most extensive type of LULC in the study area and increased by 25.6% extent. It also revealed that a substantial expansion of range land areas during the past 20 years. On the other hand, LULC classes that has high environmental importance such as grazing land and forest cover have reduced drastically through time with expanding cultivated and settlement during the same period. The Range land in 1999-2009 was about 6.8% of the total study area, and it had decreased to 5.7% in 2019. In contrast, cultivated and settlement increased from 7.8% in 1999 to 8.5% in 2019. While forest cover declined from 1999 to 2019 in the same period. The main causes for LULC changes in this particular area include population growth, land tenure insecurity, and common property rights, persistent poverty, climate change, and lack of public awareness. Therefore, the causes for LULC changes have to be controlled, and sustainable resources use is essential; else, these scarce natural resource bases will soon be lost and will no longer be able to play their contribution in sustainable ecosystem services.