A Spatio Temporal Comparative Analysis of Land Use Land Cover Change (LULC) between Sargodha District and Kaghan Valley, Pakistan

Abstract

Land use land cove change (LULC) describes how human activities have altered the natural landscape including forest cover, pastures and water bodies into urban settings. Rapid population growth with urbanization has changed the land surface in almost every part of the world especially developing countries. Current study is the comparative analysis of LULC between Sargodha district (a plain area) and Kaghan Valley (a tourist hill station). The study was conducted over a period of 20 years using satellite images of both sites. These images were obtained from USGS website and classified through supervised classification scheme to create land use maps. The results revealed that natural land cover on both sites decreased while the built up area increased significantly during the time period. The results showed that built up area in Sargodha increased 42% during 2000-2020 while it increased 14% in Kaghan Valley during the same period. Vegetation cover decreased from 59.68% in 2000 to 36.69% in 2020 in Sargodha district.