Anthropogenic intrusions leading to variability in Vegetated vs Non- vegetated land dynamics over the past two decades in India

Abstract

The increase in the human population, changing climate, natural hazards, extreme events, quest for resources has led to significant variability in the land cover dynamics. There has been a great deal of spatio temporal variability in the land use/ cover over the Indian landmass in past two decades. The study looks into the dynamics of land use/cover with focus on vegetated land vs non-vegetated land in light of human induced changes using MODIS land cover product. In order to detect the contribution of human induced changes, the dynamics of the human settlements in terms of urban area is analysed at three focal periods viz, 2001, 2010, and 2019. The difference in the decadal trend, show that the forest cover has increased by 1.1 % from 2001-10 to 2010-19. In contrast the cropland is decreased by 0.94 % from 2001-10 to 2010-19 whereas urban expansion is increased by 2.67%. Overall, the vegetated land has increased by 0.08 % and the non-vegetated land is decreased by 0.97 %. The population load requires resources to survive with concomitant decrease or reduced growth over vegetation areas.