TRANSITION OF LULC AND FUTURE PREDICTIONS BY USING CA-MARKOV CHAIN MODEL (A CASE STUDY OF METROPOLITAN CITY LAHORE, PAKISTAN)

Land use and land cover transition is continue process due to various anthropogenic activities and altering the landscape pattern of the metropolitan area of Lahore over the last two decade. LULC has been emerging masses of environmental problems including land use issues for the inhabitants, city planners, and managers. This research has been focused on the LULC change from 1998 to 2018 and their impact to forecast the landscape pattern of 2023 and 2028 in metropolitan area of Lahore. Numerous satellite imageries including land sat 5 TM and landsat 8 OLI has been undergone by supervised classification for the preparation of LULC map, land change moderler MCL to calculate the transition in LULC and CA-Markov model for predicting upcoming transitions. Results have validated by transition matrix, Google Earth data and kappa statistics. Derived results has depicted the decreased in water bodies 2.70% to 0.60%, vegetation 24.90% to 22.60% and barren land 42.50% to 35.70% and increased in built up area 29.80 % to 41% between 1998 to 2018. Finding clearly represents the loss of ecological and barren landscape over the last two decade and therefore urban expansion will likely to continue the change in landscape. This study will provide a baseline reference to urban planners and policymakers to make informed decision for management of land resources, urban land planning and for maintain sustainable land development.