Land Use and Land Cover Change Detection and Prediction in the Kathmandu District of Nepal Using Remote Sensing and GIS

Sonam Wangyel Wang,Woo-Kyun Lee,Belay Manjur Gebru,Rijan Bhakta Kayastha,Munkhnasan Lamchin

doi:10.3390/su12093925

Abstract

Understanding land use and land cover changes has become a necessity in managing and monitoring natural resources and development especially urban planning. Remote sensing and geographical information systems are proven tools for assessing land use and land cover changes that help planners to advance sustainability. Our study used remote sensing and geographical information system to detect and predict land use and land cover changes in one of the world’s most vulnerable and rapidly growing city of Kathmandu in Nepal. We found that over a period of 20 years (from 1990 to 2010), the Kathmandu district has lost 9.28% of its forests, 9.80% of its agricultural land and 77% of its water bodies. Significant amounts of these losses have been absorbed by the expanding urbanized areas, which has gained 52.47% of land. Predictions of land use and land cover change trends for 2030 show worsening trends with forest, agriculture and water bodies to decrease by an additional 14.43%, 16.67% and 25.83%, respectively. The highest gain in 2030 is predicted for urbanized areas at 18.55%. Rapid urbanization—coupled with lack of proper planning and high rural-urban migration—is the key driver of these changes. These changes are associated with loss of ecosystem services which will negatively impact human wellbeing in the city. We recommend city planners to mainstream ecosystem-based adaptation and mitigation into urban plans supported by strong policy and funds.

Highlights

At the crossroads of the twenty first century, threats from climate change, increasing frequency of disasters and other unknown potential effects of global environmental change continue to arrest human progress in achieving the sustainable development goals
According to the classification accuracy test results, the Kappa statistics for the years 1990, 2010 and 2030 were 77%, 74%, 73%, respectively. These estimates indicate that the classification accuracies were of substantial agreement. This level of agreement is acceptable for classification, detection and prediction of land use and land cover changes
Our observations in the Kathmandu district exhibits the magnitude and extent of threats and challenges that unplanned urbanization trends occurring at high altitude and land locked locations across the Himalaya will face

Summary

Introduction

At the crossroads of the twenty first century, threats from climate change, increasing frequency of disasters and other unknown potential effects of global environmental change continue to arrest human progress in achieving the sustainable development goals. Numerous studies [16,17] have reported that land cover changes impact radiative, thermodynamic and hydrological processes that can lead to changes in local climate. Such changes can create a more variable environment that are more susceptible to global temperature change, as well as increase the vulnerability and reduce resilience of communities, ecosystems and places to climatic stresses [13,18]

Methods

Results

Conclusion