TITLE:
Land Use/Land Cover Change Detection in Pokhara Metropolitan, Nepal Using Remote Sensing
AUTHORS:
Sanjeev Kumar Raut, Puran Chaudhary, Laxmi Thapa
KEYWORDS:
Error Matrix, Land Use/Land Cover (LULC), Normalized Difference Vegeta-tion Index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Supervised Image Classification, Remote Sensing, Urban Growth
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection,
Vol.8 No.8,
August
14,
2020
ABSTRACT: Land use and land cover are essential for maintaining and managing the natural resources on the earth surface. A complex set of economic, demographic, social, cultural, technological, and environmental processes usually result in the change in the land use/land cover change (LULC). Pokhara Metropolitan is influenced mainly by the combination of various driving forces: geographical location, high rate of population growth, economic opportunity, globalization, tourism activities, and political activities. In addition to this, geographically steep slope, rugged terrain, and fragile geomorphic conditions and the frequency of earthquakes, floods, and landslides make the Pokhara Metropolitan region a disaster-prone area. The increment of the population along with infrastructure development of a given territory leads towards the urbanization. It has been rapidly changing due to urbanization, industrialization and internal migration since the 1970s. The landscapes and ground patterns are frequently changing on time and prone to disaster. Here a study has been carried to study on LULC for the last 18 years (2000-2018). The supervised classification on Landsat Imagery was performed and verified the classification through computing the error matrix. Besides, the water bodies and vegetation area were extracted through the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDWI) respectively. This research shows that during the last 18 years the agricultural areas diminishing by 15.66% while urban area is increasing by 13.2%. This research is beneficial for preparing the plan and policy in the sustainable development of Pokhara Metropolitan.