Environmental Protection Measures for Unplanned Land Use and Land Cover Changes in a Subbasin of the Ganga River System

Abstract

In the Ganga river system, unplanned land use land cover (LULC) changes have serious threat to the environment. Protective measures are essential at local, regional, and global scales to save human life and the environment. In the present work, the land use and land cover (LULC) changes have been studied from 2002 to 2021 in a basin area between river Gandak and river Burhi Gandak in India. For the analysis, Landsat 5, 7, and 8 satellite data have been used to analyze the changes in vegetation, urban land, open land, water body, and wet soil in the last two decades. The result shows that from 2002 to 2021 the agricultural area and open land have decreased by 16.12% (158,676 ha) and 11.85% (116794.8 ha), respectively. The urban and the waterlogged area have increased by 24.32% (240,070 ha) and 4.75% (46937.3 ha), respectively. The environmental protection measures, namely conjunctive use, multiple cropping practices, land reclamation, and decentralized urban development to reduce floating population, have been studied and recommended in the study region for better land use/land cover.