LAND USE /LAND COVER CLASSIFICATION AND CHANGE DETECTION USING GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM: A CASE STUDY

Land use and land cover change has become a central component in current strategies for managing natural resources and monitoring environmental changes. Geographical information system and image processing techniques used for the analysis of land use/land cover and change detection of Sukhana Basin of Aurangabad District, Maharashtra state. The tools used ArcGIS10.1 and ERDAS IMAGINE9.1, landsat images of 1996, 2003and 2014. From land use / land cover change detection it is found that during 1996-2014, water bodies cover have loss of 4 Sq. Km. Barren land have 146 Sq.Km. loss and forest area with 96 Sq.Km. loss. It is found that urbanization area has gain of 51 Sq.Km. and agricultural land cover also have gain of 195 Sq.Km.