SKUAST Journal of Research

Land use/land cover and watershed study are one of the important input parameters to determine the change in various resources in the region. Present study has been undertaken to address the trend in changing land use and land cover, climate and socio-economic patterns of district Ganderbal of Kashmir valley from 1990–2018. Multi-temporal remote sensing data from Landsat TM (1990), Landsat ETM+ (2000), ASTER (2003), IRSP6 LISS IV (2018) along with SOI topographic maps were used for assessing the spatial trends in various resources of the valley. The study revealed that in 2018 among the available natural resources snow and glacier occupy an area of 42961 ha (29.3% of the total area) followed by dense forest 38846 ha (26.5%), agriculture fields 15379 ha (10.5%), barren land 14625 ha (10.0%), scrub land10922 ha (7.5%), open forest 9773 ha (6.7%), wetland 2867 ha (2%), built up 2782 ha (1.9%), mixed plantation 2141 ha (1.5%), grassland/meadows 2165 ha (1.4%), orchards/horticultural plantation 2110 ha (1.4%) and water bodies 1715 ha (1.2%) respectively. The change detection study was also carried out by comparing it with Landsat TM and ETM⁺ satellite dataset of 1990 and 2000 which revealed that sectors viz; agriculture, mixed plantation, wetland, water bodies and grassland/meadows show a decreasing pattern in the last three decades. On the other hand orchard/horticulture and builtup exhibit an increasing trend. The trends in precipitation and temperature (maximum and minimum)and other extreme weather events of the last forty years were also been discussed.