Changing Pattern of Land Use Land Cover in the Palla River Basin, Assam

Abstract

Land use land cover mapping is of great significance in scientific research, planning and management. The present study proposes to examine the Spatio-temporal changes of land use land cover in Palla basin of Barpeta district. changing pattern of land use pattern. Any geographical change irrespective of climate, Bio-diversity, land use and earth surface are all interlinked and mostly influenced by human action. The Palla river basin in Barpeta district of Assam exhibits various categories of land use due to the pressure of population within the limited resource. The aim of the study is to determine the magnitude of population pressure on land use in Palla basin. Due to the growing population pressure the total built up area in the study area increased from 26.13 percent in 2000 to 32.24 percent in 2010. On the other hand, area under forest decreased 6.28 percent to 5.27 percent in 2000–2010. The agricultural area increased from 8.95 percent to 10.31 percent during 2000–2010. This study is exclusively based on the secondary data collected from different census reports and satellite imageries to understand the population and land use pattern in the basin area.