Land Use and Land Cover Change Detection Study at Pennar River Estuary, Nellore District, Andhra Pradesh, Southeast Coast of India

G. Sreenivasulu; N. Jayaraju; T. Lakshmi Prasad

doi:10.37591/joge.v1i1.4024

Abstract

Coastal zones are the most valuable and dynamic places on Earth. A large portion of the world’s population has habitat coastal areas. Fertile coastal low lands, abundant marine resources, water transportation, aesthetic beauty and intrinsic values have long motivated coastal habitation. Two-thirds of the world’s fish catch, and many marine species, depend on coastal wetlands for their survival. The process of coastal morpho-dynamics has resulted in environmental problems such as coastal wetland loss, habitat degradation, water pollution and destruction of forest vegetation as well as host of other issues. In the study, remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) were used in order to study land use/land cover changes by using three years (2005, 2007 and 2012) satellite images IRS-P6, LISS-III data of Pennar river estuary in Nellore District, Andhra Pradesh, India. Land use/land cover maps for three years (2005, 2007 and 2012) were prepared. It is observed that the important land use features like coastal wetlands, agricultural crop and plantation lands, waste lands or uncultivated lands, swamps and water bodies and its changes. The result shows a rapid growth in agricultural lands from 44.20 (2005) to 57.45% (2012) due to the annual rainfall. The waterbodies and wetlands decreased from 34.53 (2005) to 21.10% (2012). Built-up lands increased 0.17% between 2005 and 2012. Uncultivated or waste lands and swamps got decreased. The reason for these changes can be attributed to urbanization, industrialization and modern civilization. Keywords: Change detection study, coastal zones, remote sensing, GIS