Prediction of land use land cover changes of a river basin using the CA-Markov model

Simulation and prediction of land use land cover (LULC) has been presented using Hybrid CA-Markov model for the Mahi River basin. LULC information for the year 2000, 2010, and 2020 have been obtained from classification of Landsat TM, IRS -LISS III, and Sentinel 2 sensors, respectively. Fuzzy membership function and Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP), a Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) have been used for LULC change suitability map preparation. Population density, distance from road, settlement, streams, and reservoir/lakes, slope, and DEM are used as biophysical and socio-economic LULC change drivers. Model results have been validated for year 2020 and accuracy has been found as satisfactory 2020. Results revealed a significant change in forest, agriculture, barren and built-up LULC classes during different years. Agriculture and the built-up area may increase by 641 and 21 sq.km, respectively in 2030. The predicted LULC information provides necessary data to investigate the future hydrological and climatological scenario.