Assessing landscape changes of catchment area of Upper Lake Bhopal using patch analysis

Abstract

Anthropogenic activities impart serious challenges on wetland management. The issues of Anthropogenic Activities manifest in the form of environmental degradation, point and non-point source pollution of lake water. Catchment area of upper lake Bhopal has been witnessing the same scenario; raising the question of its planning and management to control water pollution. It shows the necessity to analyse and study the pattern of land use & land cover(LULC). In order to assess the LULC pattern and spatio-temporal dynamics the changing pattern of patch number(NP), class area(CA), mean patch size(MPS), mean shape index (MSI), Shannon’s Diversity index(SHDI), Simpson’s Diversity Index(SDI) of all land use/land cover categories. In this researchpaper above mentioned parameters were measured and analyzed for landuse/landcover change from year 2003 to 2011. Area of agriculture and built up land expanded 16.18% and 4.77% while number of patches reduced by 332 and 187 for these two classes respectively. On the other hand class area of vegetation and barren land reduced 9.33% and 11.62%. Few patches of vegetation completely eliminated resulted in reduction of number of patches by 1250. Increased no. of patches of barren land by 150 shows fragmentation. Reduction in diversity indices indicates that area becomes less diversified during study period. During the period of 2003 to 2011 shape of patches of agriculture and built up land becomes more complex and that of barren land and vegetation converted to simpler shape. These indices provided meaningful insights pertaining to the spatiotemporal dynamics prevailing in the catchment area of Upper Lake Bhopal.