Predictive modelling of land use land cover dynamics for a tropical coastal urban city in Kerala, India

Land use land cover (LULC) changes act as global environmental drivers, and therefore, LULC change analysis has become the primary concern for the monitoring agencies. This study aims to project the land use and land cover (LULC) by analysing the change rate in the past, forecasting the near, middle, and far future scenarios of Cochin, a highly urbanised coastal city of Kerala, India. The natural land resources, specifically the wetlands, are undergoing adverse changes to meet the growing demands of industrialisation and basic anthropological necessities in Kochi, causing negative feedback on the environment. We performed the maximum likelihood classification technique on a series of Landsat imageries at five different times. We forecasted LULC scenarios of 2045, 2073, and 2100 using Modules for Land Change Evaluation (MOLUSCE) in QGIS. The model simulated LULC was validated by comparing the observed LULC 2020 with the simulated one. The model demonstrates acceptable LULC dynamics with an overall accuracy of 87.5%. The simulated future LULC scenarios illustrate a sweeping increase in the built-up lands and shrinkage of natural land covers such as agricultural lands, forests, fallow lands, and water bodies. The urban growth indicator based on impervious to pervious ratio (IPR) confirms the extreme transformations of the area in terms of urbanisation. The destructive effect of urbanisation on natural land cover is likely to be predominantly more alarming in the near future than in the far. The leads of this study urge the necessity to establish appropriate urban planning and management policies for sustainable environmental conservation.