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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692
Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
Rapid increase in activities like urbanization, socioeconomic activities and environmental changes are responsible for land use/land cover changes (LULCC). Hence, it is important to know LULCC to determine its impacts on hydrology. In this study an attempt has been made to analyze LULCC in the Koyna river basin, Maharashtra which is an important tributary of the Krishna River. The study reveals that the deep water body slightly increased from 4.52% in 1999 to 4.75% in 2015. The rocky land/ hard surface area increased from 3.06% in 1999 to 9.57% in 2015. On the other hand, Agricultural land has decreased from 40.25% in 1999 to 33.68% in 2015. Similarly, hilly land has decreased from 37.26% in 1999 to 32.27% in 2015. It is worth observed that from year 1999 to 2015, the most of the agricultural land has reduced in to hard surface and scrub land. The results also indicated that the thick forest has transformed in to Scrub or open forest from 1999 to 2015. There is a negative change of vegetation coverage or vegetation health for the river basin during 1999-2015, as the most of high vegetation coverage (HVC) has disappeared with a great increase of low vegetation coverage (LVC) and medium vegetation coverage (MVC). It is observed that natural and anthropogenic activities have caused significant change in land use/land cover in the study area.