The satellite imagery of 1991, 1999, 2009 and 2013 has been used to understand the land use / land cover change in Garo hill region of Meghalaya. The result shows that there is substantial change of land use / land cover in the region. The dense forest in the region has declined from 26.73% in the year 1991 to 13.96% in 2013. Similarly the percentage of open forest has decreased from 55.40% in the year 1991 to 48.98% in 2013. On the other hand the agricultural land in the region has increased from 10.65% in the year 1991 to 17.77% in 2013. Built up area has also showed a rising trend from 0.57% in the year 1991 to 3.29% in 2013. The current research has also identified that the traditional agricultural practices in the region has been gradually replaced by the plantation crops. It is also evident from the current research that remote sensing and GIS tools are quite applicable for monitoring and assessment land use / land cover change at landscape level.
Land Use / Land Cover, Deforestation, Remote Sensing, GIS,
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[Pranjit Kumar Sarma , Khagendra Kumar Nath, Md. E.A Huda, Bankim Baruah, Kiranmay Sarmah, Kalyanjit Sarma, Bibhab Kr. Talukdar (2016) Analysis of Land Use/Land Cover Changes and its Future Implications in Garo Hill Region of Meghalaya: A Geo-Spatial Approach IJIREM Vol-3 Issue-1 Page No-38-44] (ISSN 2350 - 0557). www.ijirem.org
Pranjit Kumar Sarma
Mangaldai College, Dist. Darrang, Assam - 784 125, India
