Land Cover Classification and Change Analysis in the Southern Fringe of Kolkata Metropolitan Area by Spatio Temporal Remote Sensing

By : Sushobhan Majumdar , Lakshmi Sivaramakrishnan

Page No: 301-315

Abstract
Understanding the change in land use and land cover pattern is very much crucial for the future planning and development of an area. In most of the metropolitan cities the rate of changes of land use and land cover in the peripheral areas is very rapid. Kolkata is one of the metropolitan cities in India which have experienced rapid changes of land use and land cover in recent decades. This study aims to find out the trends of land use and land cover change in the southern fringe of Kolkata Metropolitan Area in the last thirty five years. The objective of the study is to analyze the nature, trends and pattern of land use land cover changes between the years 1980 to 2015. Land cover types were classified through supervised classification using multi[1]temporal Landsat imagery. The land cover products were then validated and overlaid in post-classification comparison to detect the changes between the years 1980 to 2015. Four land use and land cover classes, namely built up area, vegetation, water body and fallow land has been identified. This study reveals that conversion of water bodies, vegetation and low lying areas to urban area has given birth to the unplanned growth of settlements and associated problems. These are the main negative outcomes associated with the rapid urban development of this region. As reliable and current data are lacking for micro level, the land use maps produced in this study will contribute to both the development of sustainable urban land use planning decisions and also for forecasting possible future urban nodes.

Authors :
Sushobhan Majumdar : Senior Research Fellow, Department of Geography, Jadavpur University
Lakshmi Sivaramakrishnan : Professor and Head, Department of Geography, Jadavpur University.
 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32381/ATNAGI.2018.38.02.8