Monitoring land use/ cover dynamics of Achanakmar Tiger Reserve (ATR), India by using multi-temporal satellite data and future scenario

The Achanakmar Tiger Reserve (ATR) has experienced various land use changes since 1975. In this study, multi-temporal land-use changes of the ATR from 2000 to 2015 were assessed using IRS-1D and P6, LISS III and Landsat OLI satellite imageries. ERDAS Imagine v 2013 and IGIS v 1.0 software was used to process satellite imageries and assess quantitative data. The maximum likelihood classification algorithm was used to derive a supervised land-use classification of the spring and autumn months for 2000, 2008, 2013 and 2015. Dense forest is the dominant land cover type covering approximately 56% of the area, followed by open forest, scrub land, agricultural land, river bed, built up land and water bodies. During 16-year period, approximately 3.20 and 2.24% of the open forest area had increased during the spring and autumn seasons, and the annual rate of change was 0.20 and 0.14%. Scrub land area has decreased by 3.53 and 2.85% during the spring and autumn seasons during this period. Areas covered under water bodies, river beds and built up lands have also reported increment. Slight variations were observed in areas of dense forest, scrub land and agricultural land. The overall accuracy for supervised images ranged from 91.84 to 94.90%. Projection modeling of ATR area was performed using TerrSet Software (v18.31) for different land use scenario. LULC projection map of 2030 shows that dense forest area will remain the dominant land cover with slight modification in built-up land, agricultural land and water bodies. ATR's land use/ land cover database will help identify the impacts of climate change on forests, water bodies and biodiversity. The results will also be helpful in planning and implementing better management decisions to conserve rich biodiversity of ATR.