Assessment of land use, land cover change in the mangrove forest of Ghogha area, Gulf of Khambhat, Gujarat

Abstract

The most important biological ecosystems on the earth are mangroves, palms, shrubs, and trees that have adjusted to the challenging environments of high salinity, warm air and temperatures, severe tides, murky, sediment-hampered waterways, and oxygen-depleted soils make up mangroves that are mostly found in the intertidal zone. It is a sanctuary for a variety of aquatic animals and provide protection to coastal land. It acts as “Kalpvruksh” for human being and aquatic culture. Despite the importance of the mangrove ecosystem, the area of mangroves has been declining for several decades. The multispectral data and image processing techniques are frequently used to map and monitor mangrove changes. In this study, the changes of mangroves were accomplished along the Ghogha coast, Bhavnagar district of Gujarat coast, India using the Landsat 8 OLI and Sentinel–2A satellite data for 2016 and 2018, respectively. The image analysis and change detection studies were carried out using QGIS (3.10.14) and ArcMap (10.7.1) software. Using high-resolution satellite data and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), this research attempts to determine the geographical extent of mangroves. The result shows that the total mangrove cover decreased from 2016 to 2018 and Sentinel-2A images shows a better performance in comparison to Landsat 8 OLI, because of its higher spatial resolution.