Understanding the impact of urbanisation on wetlands using random forest machine learning algorithm in Google Earth Engine: a case of East Kolkata Wetlands, India

Land cover maps help in understanding the spatial and temporal dynamics of a particular area in a given time.The present study was done in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA) and East Kolkata Wetland (EKW) in India using the machine learning (ML) algorithm of random forest classification and prediction in Google Earth Engine.The ML algorithm was used to classify the land use land cover (LULC) maps of KMA and EKW for 2002, 2013 and 2023.The ML prediction model further used these LULC maps to predict the future land cover map for the year 2033, both for KMA and EKW.A correlation analysis was done between the built-up of KMA and the built-up of EKW to assess the impact of the urban expansion of KMA on the wetlands of EKW.The present study explored the impact of the increase in built-up area on the wetland and it was seen that the built-up of EKW was increasing due to the increase in the urban expansion of KMA.As a result, the wetland is experiencing a decrease in biodiversity and quality of water and soil.