Analysis of land use land cover of Vijayapura taluk using remote sensing and GIS techniques

Abstract

The dynamic transformation of land use and land cover (LULC) has become a crucial aspect of effective natural resources management and continuous environmental monitoring. A research study utilizing remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) techniques was conducted in Vijayapura Taluk, Vijayapura District, Karnataka during 2023-24 to analyze LULC changes. Remote sensing has proven to be a useful tool for generating LULC maps and identifying and quantifying crop areas. The objective of this study was to classify and map the LULC of the study area using RS and GIS techniques A supervised classification was performed using the maximum likelihood classification algorithm in the Semi-Automatic Classification Plugin (SCP) of QGIS software. Sentinel-2 satellite images captured on May 1 and December 1, 2023, were analyzed to estimate LULC changes between summer to rabi seasons. In the summer season, water bodies constituted 0.63 per cent, vegetation covered 25.05 per cent, built-ups/habitat comprised 6.67 per cent and bare land made up 67.65 per cent of the total study area. In contrast, during the rabi season, water bodies slightly increased to 0.66 per cent, vegetation significantly rose to 69.65 per cent, built-ups/habitat expanded to7.52 per cent and bare land decreased to 22.16 per cent. These results highlight a substantial increase in vegetation cover during the rabi season compared to the summer season, emphasizing the importance of rainfall and residual soil moisture for crop cultivation, along with a corresponding reduction in bare land. The accuracy assessment of LULC classification revealed an overall accuracy of 90.45 per cent for summer and 89.44 per cent for rabi, with kappa coefficients of 0.87 and 0.84, respectively, demonstrating the reliability of the classification method.