Assessment of Spatio-Temporal Change of Landuse and Land-Cover in IB Valley Coalfield Using Remote Sensing and GIS

Abstract

Availability of vast coal reserve along with nearby water reservoirs transferred Ib Valley into one of the prominent mining and industrial zone in Western Odisha. Here, the major portion of coal production is achieved through mechanized opencast working and contributed 44.46 M.T. of coal in last financial year 2013-14 (www.mcl.gov.in, last accessed: 12/05/2015). The present study focuses on the use of Remote Sensing and GIS as a tool for land use delineation and change detection in Ib Valley coalfields in last three decades. LANDSAT TM 1989, LANDSAT 7 data for 2000 and 2003, LISS –III data for 2012 and LANDSAT-8 data for 2015 were used for this study. The classification map with five prominent five land use/land cover categories was generated with the help of ArcGIS and ERDAS using various indices and visual image interpretation techniques. The comparative analysis of the classification maps in different time periods shows that the total loss in vegetation cover between 1989 and 2015 is about 1434 km2 and increase in mining area is about 30 km2 . Though the water body has decreased but still there is not much difference. The total increase in settlements amounts to 119 km2. Thus it is clear that large scale mining leads to massive deforestation as can be seen in Ib Valley area.