Exploring the influence of LULC change on hydro-meteorological shifts in the Vedavathi basin

Abstract

The influence of the changing land use land cover (LULC) pattern on the vegetation, water, and temperature parameters is ascertained in the study of the Vedavathi River basin. For the years 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2022 Landsat and MODIS satellite products (MOD11C3, MOD13Q1) along with the ground-based rainfall from IMD measurement were used to implement the methods of indices such as normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), normalized difference water index (NDWI) along with the land surface temperature (LST), and standardized precipitation index (SPI) and analyze the situation in the basin. Since 2005 more than 2000 km2 of fallow land has been transformed into cropland. 22.35% of grassland was converted to plantation in two decades while 13% of scrub forest has been reduced to wasteland. The increase in the cropland and the changing forest area has brought an increase in the mean NDVI value while at the same time an increase in the temperature value. The years 2003 and 2004 witnessed an extreme dry conditions in most of the stations while 2010 and 2020 experienced flood-like conditions. Overall majority of the drought conditions were witnessed in the 1990s and 2000s while flood conditions were prominent in the later part of the study. The study aims to provide an understanding between all these factors and what is the intensity of influence on each other.