Change Detection Analysis of Landuse/Land Cover using Geospatial Technique in the Phek District, Nagaland, India (1994-2024)

Landuse and land cover constitute crucial factors for understanding the relationships between human activities and the environment, making them essential for studying, monitoring, and detecting changes to ensure environmental sustainability. This paper represents an attempt to investigate the changes in land use and land cover in the Phek district of Nagaland, India, for the periods of 1994-2003, 2003-2014, and 2014-2024. The study was carried out using a Remote Sensing and GIS approach using Satellite Imagery from Landsat 4-5 TM (1994), Landsat 7 ETM+ (2003), Landsat 8-9 OLI/TIRS (2014), and Landsat 8-9 OLI/TIRS (2024). A supervised classification employing the Maximum Likelihood Classifier (MLC) was utilized to generate the Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) maps of Phek district. In the past four decades, the Phek district has experienced a succession of changes as a consequence of the consistent development of human activities, the increase in population, and the predominant agricultural activity. Six major LULC classes, viz., dense forest, water body, built-up, agriculture, barren, and open forest. The four decades of 1994-2024 show the major types of land use change. Results show that dense forest, water bodies, built-up areas, agriculture, and barren land have increased from 30.65% to 36.58%, 0.21% to 0.23%, 0.51% to 2.46%, 2.07% to 2.72%, and 0.89% to 1.16%, and open forest has decreased from 65.67% to 56.85%.