Bank Line Migration and Its Impact on Land Use and Land Cover Change: A Case Study in Jangipur Subdivision of Murshidabad District, West Bengal

Abstract

This study is to evaluate the impact of bank lines shifting on land use and land cover changes. It is also to understand the coherence between changes in land use and land cover and annual rate of river bank failure. To fulfill the purpose of the present study, 21 river bank erosion-affected mouzas along the banks of river Ganga-Bhagirathi in Jangipur subdivision of Murshidabad district, West Bengal, have been selected. The whole work has been done with the help of RS and GIS techniques. Field visit has been arranged to verify the ground truth basically. The result of the study shows that an area with active bank erosion problem is characterized by remarkable land use land cover changes. In the study area, total erosion is 7.93 square kilometer (km2) where the total deposition is 3.244 km2 along the river banks from the year of 1980 to 2010. It can be said that bank failure directly affects the land use and land cover of the area under the river channel. During 1980–1990, negative and significant correlation is observed between the annual rate of bank erosion and change in area under sparse vegetation (r = − 0.810). Again, positive and significant correlation is observed between the annual rate of bank erosion and change in area of water body (r = 0.60). Same scenario is also observed in the respective years of 1990–2000 and 2000–2010. Ganga-Bhagirathi bank erosion has an adverse impact on the dwellers of the flood plain.