Abstract

LAND USE LAND COVER OF AGRA TEHSIL: A COMPARATIVE STUDY FROM 2002 TO 2015

Dr. Brototi Biswas, Dr. Praveen Andrew Majeed* and Bob Stanley Gardner

Abstract

Land use and land cover of a region is affected by man and his socioeconomic activities. Man has always altered the natural fabric through his capitalistic consummation of natural resources. Land has been an immediate recipient of this approach due to immense population practicing agricultural activities on it. The land use and land cover change has become an important component in current strategies for managing natural resources and monitoring environmental change.[1] The satellite Remote Sensing and GIS techniques are useful tools for assessing the land use/land cover which is one of the important components for planning and development of an area.[2] Such information on the patternof land use and land cover helps planners and environmentalists in analyzing and monitoring land use in accordance with the growing population. Keeping this in view the present study focuses on the nature of land use and land cover of Agra Tehsil (Agra) of Uttar Pradesh State between the years 2002 and 2015 using remote sensing and GIS techniques. There is a wide range of techniques used for land use/land cover change detection. The various change detection methods are image comparison, comparison of classified images, combination of classified images, radar classification.[3,4] Along with finding out the LULC of the study area for 2002 and 2015, a change detection analysis was performed to understand the nature and rate of increase and decrease in land use/land cover of the study area. Further through change detection matrix, the area transformation amongst the various classes in the span of 13 years was also studied.

Keywords: Agra, Population, Land use/Land cover, Remote Sensing, GIS.