Land-Use Land-Cover Change and Its Impact on Surface Runoff using Remote Sensing and GIS

Abstract

Due to urbanization, the incessant growth and development occurring in the peri-urban region, has led to a significant transformations of land-use/ land-cover pattern especially in built-up areas. As a result, there has been an expansion of impervious land (concretization) which has significantly affected the surface runoff behavior in the urban realm. Scenarios like urban floods, water pollution and soil degradation are some of the major consequences of changes in runoff pattern. It calls for an objective assessment and the study temporal behavior of surface runoff pattern for taking up any preventive and/or curative measures. Timely and reliable information on surface runoff in spatial domain is a pre-requisite in this endeavor. Space-borne multispectral and multi-temporal measurements hold a great promise in analyzing land-use/land cover patterns and their temporal behavior, and its impact on the runoff in a timely and cost-effective manner. A study was taken up in Serilingampally Mandal of Rangareddy district, a peri-urban area of Hyderabad city, Telangana state for assessment and monitoring of surface runoff patterns using Landsat-MSS data and Resourcesat 2 LISS-IV data collected in 1975 and 2016, respectively through heads-up/on-screen visual interpretation approach. Initially, the information on land use/cover pattern was generated to assess the growth of the urban settlements. Subsequently the corresponding increase in surface runoff during the monsoon seasons (June-October) 1975 and 2016 were computed using SCS (Soil Conservation Service) curve number method. Results indicate a sharp increase in built up land from 0.91% to 69.36%. During the period 1975-2016 with consequent higher runoff to the tune of 27.5% as compared 1975 period.