Evaluating Land Use/Land Cover Change Dynamics in Bhimtal Lake Catchment Area, Using Remote Sensing & GIS Techniques

Abstract

The present study was aimed at the assessment of forest cover and land use changes in the catchment area of Bhimtal lake situated in the Kumaun region of Uttarakhand, India using multitemporal Landsat satellite images. The Landsat satellite images of year 1996 to 2015 were acquired and subjected to supervised classification into four different classes viz. urban, agriculture, forest and water body. The classified maps were verified through random field samples and google earth imagery. The images of study area were categorized into four different classes viz., settlement area, agriculture area, forest area and water body. The results revealed that during last 20 years, the settlement area has been increased from 9.70% to 18.38%, agricultural area has increased from 44.32% to 47.63% and forest area has been decreased 43.58% to 31.47%. The findings from the study will be useful for lake and landscape planning and can serve as a potential source of information to the policy makers of Uttarakhand.