Application of Remote Sensing and GIS in the analysis of Land Use/ Land Cover study of

Jharkhali Island, Sundarbans, West Bengal.

Author : Aditya Shreshtkar,

Final Year B.Tech Environmental Engineering, Indian School Of Mines, Dhanbad

National Climate Change Conference,IISc Bengaluru 2-3 July, 2015

Introduction• Land use and land cover change has

become a central component in current strategies for managing natural resources and monitoring environmental changes.

• Population Explosion in the Sundarban regions have cost drastic change in Land Use/ Land Cover patterns.

• Study Area is a World Heritage Site (UNESCO, 1989), contains substantial part of Namakhana R.F. and have few Ramsar Sites.

• Use of technologies like Remote Sensing and GIS comes very handy in study of such large spatial areas and phenomenons.

KEYWORDS : Sundarbans

Remote Sensing & GIS

Landuse Change Population Pressure

Study Area

Objectives• To create a land cover classification

scheme and determine the land use & land cover changes.

• To analyse the change in the vegetation cover.

• To generate data on land consumption and land absorption coefficient

• To evaluate the socio-economic implication of the change.

Methodology• Time Series Analysis of LULC for two

epochs : 1990 and 2010

• Maximum Likelihood Supervised Classification

• Preparation of Vegetation Maps using NDVI

• Change Detection using Image Differencing, DNDVI and Overlay Operations.

Results and Implications

• The landuse change dynamics of Jharkhali island indicate prolonged anthropogenic pressure on a fragile ecological niche of the Sundarbans.

• Accretion of Land

• Shift in economic practices.

• There are other areas in Gosaba and Hingalganj where similar changes have taken place in recent times.