Land Use Change and its Effect on Soil with Special Reference to Heavy Metals Contamination in Bathinda District Punjab

Abstract

Rapid industrialization and urban sprawl in the last few decades has led to changes newlinein land use pattern and rate of consumption. For better understanding of the newlinemechanisms involved in land use land cover (LULC) change, it becomes imperative newlineto carry out monitoring and subsequent modelling of LULC changes for the newlinemanagement of land resources. Therefore, an attempt was made to study the newlinespatio-temporal changes in the LULC pattern of district of Bathinda, Punjab, India. newlineChange detection was carried out using multi-temporal Linear Imaging Self newlineScanning Sensor-III (LISS-III) datasets of the year 2006 and 2018 to analyze the newlinespatio-temporal changes. Maximum likelihood classification (MLC) algorithm based newlinesupervised classification was used, aided by ArcGIS 10.6.1 software. Based on newlineclassified map, it was revealed that the area under water bodies have increased by newline0.41km2 in 2018. The built-up areas including human settlements, commercial newlineinfrastructures, roads and other pavements, have increased from 584.44km2 to newline852.14km2whereas, the agricultural land has reduced from 2686.12km2 to newline2398.38km2 during the period. Vegetation cover indicated an increasing trend from newline28.49km2 to 54.67km2 during 12 years of time span whereas, the fallow land newlineshowed a decreasing trend from 26.36km2 to 18.36km2. The changes in different newlineland features took place as a result of anthropogenic activities especially in newlineagricultural fields and human settlements besides a small percentage in other newlinefeature such as water bodies, vegetation cover and fallow land. newlineChemical substances including pesticides and fertilizers have been damaging the newlinesoil quality causing negative impacts on soil and other biotic systems. Such newlineproblems are frequently observed in arid and semi-arid regions of Punjab and newlineHaryana state. In this attempt, the soil quality of Bathinda district was analyzed by newlinedifferent analytical methods, in order to provide comprehensive information about newlinestatus, relationship and spatial distribution. The parameters included colour, particle newlinev newlinesize di