Preparation of Land Use Land Cover (Lulc) for Panchganga River Basin Using Remote Sensing and GIS

Abstract The lower Panchganga River Basin, located in the center of Kolhapur District, is a crucial ecological and socio-economic area known for its diverse landscapes and dynamic land use patterns. A recent study was conducted to analyze the distribution of land use and land cover (LULC) in the basin, covering the years 1991, 2001, 2011, and 2021. The study employed remote sensing and GIS techniques to cover an area of 811.54 sq. km. In this study, land use and land cover maps were created for the years 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021 by classifying satellite images using supervised classification in QGIS. The accuracy of the classification was assessed using the error matrix approach, and the Kappa coefficient was calculated. The overall accuracy of the satellite image classification was found to be satisfactory, with Kappa coefficient values of 0.78, 0.79, 0.71 and 0.82 for the years 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021, respectively. In that, agricultural land, water bodies, barren land and forest found decreasing from 78.8% to 76.5%, 2.3% to 1.4%, 4.9% to 3.9% and 6.2% to 4.0% of the total area, respectively. However, only area under urban settlements found increasing from 7.8% to 14.6% of the total area over the period of 30 years (1991-2021). Overall, it can be said that, over the period of 30 years, basin area under gone drastic change in LULC and continues, but through all these years agricultural land remained dominant as it is the main source of economy in the study area. Comprehending these changes are essential for well informed decision making, sustainable resource administration and efficient environmental planning in Panchganga River Basin. It is essential to focus on study on LULC change detection in the lower Panchganga River basin, which is one of the most important river basins in the Kolhapur district of Maharashtra state.