Monitoring and analysis of land cover changes in Yala National Park, Sri Lanka using Landsat time series (2000∼2022)

Yala National Park (YNP), a biodiversity hotspot in South Asia, is increasingly threatened by human-induced landscape transformation. However, long-term assessments of land cover dynamics and landscape integrity remain limited. This study, grounded in a landscape ecology – remote sensing framework, leverages 23 years of Landsat time-series data on Google Earth Engine (GEE) to quantify habitat loss and analyze landscape changes in YNP. The results reveal the following over a 23-year period: (i) YNP shows mild fragmentation characteristics, primarily manifested as local forest loss and patchiness of land cover under increased edge effects (0.7% decline in Contagion Index); (ii) The buffer zone has experienced high-intensity land cover conversion (with agricultural land accounting for 29.9% in 2022) and fragmentation of landscape patterns (13.7% decline in Contagion Index), with agricultural expansion infiltrating towards the edges of YNP; (iii) The increase in cropland area shows a significant positive correlation with the number of fatalities caused by Human-elephant conflict (Pearson's, r = 0.92, p < 0.01). Our study demonstrates the monitoring and assessment of long-term landscape changes, providing practical guidance for national parks facing similar human-wildlife conflict challenges.