Tracking vegetation shifts in Bakhira Wildlife Sanctuary: a remote sensing approach to climate-driven wetland change

Ramsar convention in Uttar Pradesh has several sites, and Bakhira Wildlife Sanctuary is one of them. It holds ecological importance due to its role in sustaining diverse floral and faunal species, as well as regulating hydrological processes. The goal of the study is to assess the impact of climate on land use and land cover (LULC) dynamics within the 3-km buffer zone of sanctuary from 2013 to 2024. Remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) methodologies along with Landsat-8 satellite imagery are utilized, and a supervised classification approach was employed to delineate five distinct LULC classes. Further, analysis of climate-related change is done by calculating spectral indices: Land Surface Temperature (LST), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI). Results show a total land transformation of 2,768.73 ha. Agricultural land shrink by 414.9 ha (-4.0%), and bare land reduced by 328.9 ha (-56.9%). On the other hand, wetland vegetation, built-up areas, and water bodies increased by 314.4 ha (18.4%), 246.6 ha (23.7%), and 182.2 ha (18.5%), respectively. A remarkable change in LST is observed, where maximum temperatures dropped from 48°C in 2013 to 31.20°C in 2024, and minimum temperatures rose from 15.24°C to 21.26°C. The result confirms climate-driven LULC changes and highlight the need for sustainable conservation.