Spatiotemporal Assessment of Land Use System in Kathmandu Valley of Nepal Using Geospatial Techniques

Abstract

The Kathmandu Valley is one of the growing urbanization trend spreading capital city of Nepal. This metropolitan valley is experiencing a significant transformation of its landscapes in the last few decades resulting in large land use and land cover change. A systematic study of the urbanization trend and LULC has been felt need on this valley. Considering the importance of LULC change this study is carried out using Arc GIS to assess land use system and change dynamics in the study area based on Landsat imagery of the years from 2000 to 2019 at yearly interval. From the study of LULC of Kathmandu valley over the period selected a remarkable change scenario was observed in Agricultural land, Forest area, Vegetation land, Built up and River Bed area. Built up area is found significantly increased by 16% during the period in Kathmandu Valley. Forest area is found increased by 3%, whereas because of concrete structures built in the city caused decrease in water body in the valley by 3% up to the year 2008 and found increased later years with the increase in forest area. The effects in rivers system are observed significantly. River bed area is found decreased over this time period by 9%.This study showed the fast expansion of urbanization area and rapid conversions of agricultural land in Kathmandu Valley (study area).