Land Use and Land Cover Change Along Shivaliks Between River Ghagghar and Yamuna

Abstract

In the past two centuries the impact of human activities on the land has grown enormously, altering almost entire landscapes, and ultimately impacting the earth’s nutrient and hydrological cycles as well as climate. Humans have been altering land cover since pre-history, through the use of fire to flush out game and, since the advent of plant and animal domestication, through the clearance of patches of land for agriculture and livestock. Land-use and land-cover changes are local and place specific, occurring incrementally in ways that often escape our attention. Yet, collectively, they add up to one of the most important facets of global environmental change. The present study is intended to study the area along the Shivaliks hills, between river Ghagghar and Yamuna. The developmental blocks of the foothill zone of Shivaliks bordering Haryana have been taken for the study. The objective of the study is to study the patterns of land use and land cover in the area during year 1990, 2000 and 2010 detect the changes in the land use and land cover pattern during this period and to identify and investigate the factors responsible for the change. The satellite based remotely sensed data is used to collect the land use and land cover pattern and the analysis of the data in done in GIS software. The results portraits that there remain only few landscapes in the study area those are still in their natural state. Due to anthropogenic activities, the study region is being significantly altered in some manner and man’s presence on the area, his use of land has had a profound effect upon the natural environment thus resulting into an observable pattern in the land use/land cover over time. The land use/land cover pattern of a region is an outcome of natural and socio–economic factors and their utilization by man in time and space. The main objective of the study was to test the remote sensing and GIS for the purpose of detection of change in land use and land cover. When the results from remote sensing and GIS were compared with the ground reality they are found quite reliable. The results are found near to the reality. Different time period satellite imageries are very useful for the detection of changes. This method saves efforts and time of the researcher who wants to investigate the changes taking place over an area.