Land Use/Land Cover Change Detection Using Remote Sensing and GIS Approach in Sawangi Watershed of Yavatmal District, Maharashtra, India

Land cover is a physical appearance of land, representing its ecological status. It is dynamically changed due to human interventions, natural disturbances and successions. The research extent of such changes needs to be known for better land use planning decisions. Land use land cover changes during the period of 2008 to 2017 were analyzed usings geographical information system (GIS) and remote sensing data were used to determine the changes based on time-series of Landsat satellite imagery in Sawangi watershed of Yavatmal district, Maharashtra. The comparison of each class of study over these years showed a significant change in land use and land cover. The result showed that there was a high increase in five land cover types, namely: current fallows (12.5 %), wasteland (2.34 %), habitation (0.07 %), industrial area (0.23 %) and water bodies (0.36 %). Contrarily, there was declension in three land cover types, namely: agriculture (12.7 %), shrub land (2.77 %), and forest (9 %). These finding will help in deciding land use planning for future in the watershed.