Remote sensing and gis approach to monitor the land-use and land-cover change in Kaduwela metropolitan area

Abstract

This article depicts the impact of Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) change using multi-temporal remotely sensed data in the Kaduwela metropolitan area located in Colombo District for the period between 1997 and 2019. To obtain information from the satellite data, the Maximum likelihood supervised classification technique and post-classification change detection strategy were applied. Besides, Spectral indices were utilized to define the ground truth. Thus, the study area was divided into four main land use/cover classes, and hence five satellite images for the years; 1997, 2007, 2014, 2017, and 2019 with low cloud cover were identified. According to the study, urban development resulted in a significant conversion of vegetation cover to the urban development of around 36 km 2 during the past 22 years. The generated map showed that between 1997 and 2019, the built-up area increased by 43.62 percent whereas vegetation cover decreased by 41.72 percent. The overall precision of the data produced ranged from 72 to 81 percent. The dramatic growth of the urban population will boost the risk of natural environmental diminishing. This study assesses the change in the LULC pattern for the previous 22 years, providing useful information for the urban planners to make sustainable environmental decisions.