Geographical analysis

Department of Geography & GIS

Article

Geographical analysis

Year: 2025, Volume: 14, Issue: 2, Pages: 43-52

Original Article

Spatiotemporal Analysis of Land Use and Vegetation Changes in Kasaragod District Using Remote Sensing and GIS: Implications for Sustainable Development

Received Date:25 January 2025, Accepted Date:25 October 2025

Abstract

The study presents an in-depth evaluation of spatial and temporal Land Use Land Cover (LULC) modifications and their impacts on environmental and socio-economic dynamics at local scales. Utilizing Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) techniques to find out the fluctuations in LULC and vegetational cover from 2000 to 2023 in Kasaragod district of Kerala. Using a supervised classification method on satellite imagery, significant changes were detected in the distribution of various LULC classes. The analysis also included effective strategies for determining vegetation cover using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) technique, which highlights alterations in LULC and the extent of vegetation cover.  LULC classification result indicates that dense vegetation (-63.48%), water body (-41.09%) and barren land (-100.83%) drastically declined while built-up area (82.06%) and mixed crop with settlement (15.66%) significantly increased. NDVI analysis reveals a decrease in dense vegetation (-86.01%) and sparse vegetation (-5.32%), highlighting the importance to protect natural vegetation cover. The trends identified in this research will be valuable for planners and decision-makers in the developmental analysis and future LULC management.

Keywords: Land Use Land Cover, Remote sensing, Geographic Information Systems, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Human Wildlife Conflict

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Copyright

© 2025 Saran et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Published By Bangalore University, Bengaluru, Karnataka

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