Monitoring of Land Use and Land Cover Changes Using Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System

Abstract The Land use Land cover (LULC) change due to rapidly growing population is a common feature of urban area. This research aims to detect the variations in LULC from 1991-2017 of Malakand Division in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. The study relies on secondary dataset downloaded from United State Geological Survey (1991, 2001, 2011 & 2017 imageries) and UN OCHA website. Maximum Likelihood technique under supervised image classification was adopted to analyze the LULC changes in between 1991 and 2017. Total six land use classes were generated including agriculture built-up area, vegetation cover, water bodies, snow cover and barren land. The results from 1991 to 2017 show a substantial reduction in snow cover and barren land which is consequence of climate change. Whereas the areas underbuilt-up, vegetation cover, and water bodies were increased. The vegetation cover increased from 28.89% to 44.67% while barren land decreased from 45.68% to 40.29 of the total area. Furthermore, the built-up area increased from 1.02% to 6.2%, whereas water covers increased from 0.63% (1991) up to 0.86% (2017) of the total area. The study concludes that there is immense need of planning to preserve natural habitat for sustainable development in the area.