Land use and land cover change and landfill site suitability analysis in the surroundings of Yamuna River in Delhi, India using geospatial techniques
Student name: Ms Neha Chauhan
Guide: Dr Chander Kumar Singh
Year of completion: 2018
Host Organisation: IGCMC, WWF-India, New Delhi
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr G. Areendran
Abstract: LULC change analysis is an effective tool in monitoring land use land cover change over a period of time. The land use land cover has abruptly changed in the past few decades around Yamuna river, affecting the quality of the river. In this study, LULC of 10km region around Yamuna river in Delhi for the years 1977, 1998 and 2018 are prepared using Landsat satellite data. The images are classified with unsupervised classification into 8 LULC categories viz. dense vegetation, sparse vegetation, crop land, open land, scrub land, waterbodies, built-up and sediment. Major changes were observed in dense vegetation, crop land and built-up. A net percent increase of 25% in built-up, decrease of 9.7% in dense vegetation and 15.5% in crop land were observed. The LULC map showed rapid urbanization around Yamuna River and encroachment on its riverbed. It also shows shift in the course of the river of Yamuna over the period of time. Shift in the river is studied since 1807 and the distance and direction of shift are also presented with respect to 2018.The LULC of the study area also depicts relationship between crop land, open land and built-up.
The quality of Yamuna river in Delhi is also deteriorated due to runoff from the nearby Landfill sites. Landfills are still the most preferred method of waste disposal in Delhi and the existing ones, despite reaching the saturation levels, are still in functioning mode. Hence, selecting a suitable site becomes important for the proper management and disposal of waste as well as for the safety of the surrounding environment. In this paper, site suitability of the already existing landfills is studied using Weighted Overlay Analysis in the 10km buffer around Yamuna river in Delhi. The results showed that the three landfills in the study area- Ghazipur Landfill, Okhla landfill and Bhalswa landfill are found to be moderately suitable. The total suitable area is around only 67km2 of the study area and no area is found to be highly suitable for the construction.
Keywords: Yamuna, land use land cover (LULC), river course change, site suitability, Geographical Informatics System, Remote Sensing
