Evaluating Landscape Dynamics in Jamunia Watershed, Jharkhand (India) Using Earth Observation Datasets

Abstract

Throughout the most recent years of the twentieth century, the spatial and terrestrial differences in land use due to human activities have been used as an indicator of change in landscape structure, examples, and elements. To understand and quantify the changes in land structure, pattern, and dynamics, it is essential to have a perfect understanding of landscape indices. The present study attempts to assess the long-term transformation of land use and land cover (LULC) as well as fragmentation of landscape in Jamunia watershed of Jharkhand state of India. Nowadays, geo-spatial techniques are exceptionally useful and proficient to observe the changes in LULC of an area or region. Freely accessible datasets derived from the Landsat satellite were used for change analysis between 1989 and 2016. In addition, open source software, i.e., Integrated Land and Water Information System (ILWIS) and Quantum geographical information system (QGIS), were implemented to accomplish this study. Moreover, spatial statistics programs such as FRAGSTAT and Patch Analyst have been efficiently used for landscape metrics calculation. It was perceived that the number of patches of forest declined from 13,356 to 11,278 between 1989 and 2016. This decrease in forest patches is because of the decrease in forest cover, mainly in the southern part as well as the northwest portion of the study area. In our case, the decreasing area of forests causes a decrease of forest patches; thus, the fragmentation was also suppressed. The patch density of the forest also decreased, and accordingly, LPI decreased; i.e., the lower the number of patches, the lower the patch density, and the smaller the largest patches. The accuracy calculation of LULC maps derived from satellite images was shown to be >85%, which allows further analysis because it satisfies the Anderson classification scheme.