LAND USE LAND COVER CHANGE DETECTION THROUGH QGIS AND REMOTE SENSING TECHNIQUES: A CASE STUDY ON WARANGAL URBAN DISTRICT, TELANGANA, INDIA

Abstract

Land Use land Cover (LULC) change detection is the digital process that helps in determining the changes
associated with Land Use Land Cover properties. The earth surface is undergoing hasty land use land cover changes
due to various socioeconomic activities such as natural resource management and sustainable development. The main
aim of the study was to gain a quantitative understanding of land use and land cover changes in Warangal urban
district, Telangana, India over the time period of 2008-2016. Unsupervised classification was done using ERDAS
imagine in this study to detect land use land cover changes observed in Warangal urban district. The study area was
categorized into four major Land use Land cover classes which are vegetation, water bodies, urban built-up area and
other open lands of Warangal urban district. Change detection analysis and LULC maps were executed using QGIS
to compare the quantities of land cover class conversions between the time intervals 2008 and 2016. The results
revealed both increase and decrease of the different LULC classes. The major changes were taken place in open land
and others as there is high growth in urban built-up area. About 41% of the other open lands and a part of vegetation
were changed to built-up area in the period from 2008 to 2016. The area of built-up is increased from 12163 to 39247
ha which is about 223% over the period of 2008 to 2016. In addition to this, areas under vegetation were decreased
from 74814 ha to 65221 ha which is about 13% and water bodies were decreased from 4944 ha to 3562 ha which is
about 28%. The reasons for the change detection were also discussed.