Spatio-temporal Patterns of Land Use/Land Cover Change in the Bhutan–Bengal Foothill Region Between 1987 and 2019: Study Towards Geospatial Applications and Policy Making

Abstract

Monitoring of land use and land cover (LULC) change is fundamental aspect of the landscape dynamics or environmental health evaluation at different spatio-temporal scales. Assessment of LULC change is highly imperative in evaluating the environmental and ecosystem management, conservation, land use planning, resource management and overall sustainable environmental management. The rich natural biodiversity zone of Bhutan–Bengal foothill has been considered to assess the LULC change from 1987 to 2019. The principal objective of this study is to identify the rate of transformation of land use and land cover change along with its causes and consequences. ETM, ETM+ and OLI Landsat satellite images of 1987, 2001 and 2019 are used to find out the magnitude of land use and land cover transformation. Maximum likelihood classifier or maximum likelihood classification method has been applied to classify the attributes of LULC change of Bhutan–Bengal foothill. The LULC components are further verified and rectified by reliable statistical error (confused) matrix accuracy assessment techniques to sort out the error incurred during preparation of final spatio-temporal LULC change maps. The result shows that there is a partial change of LULC during the last 3 decades (1987–2019). LULC data of 3 decades reveal a negative change or reduction of areas like vegetation (− 2.93%), agriculture (− 6.955) and plantation (− 0.5%), whereas other three important LULC components such as built-up area (6.44%), barren land (2.71%) and water body (1.29%) take slightly positive trend. Large-scale human encroachment, natural forest habitat fragmentation and conversion have brought rapid transformation from natural landscape to cultural landscape in Bhutan–Bengal foothill. This fundamental research will definitely help to make policy framing holistic management approach.