Impact of changing urban landscapes on forest degradation: A study on a part of Western Ghats, India.

The current research is focused on studying the land use changes in selected sites (total area of 3488 sq. km) of the Uttara Kannada district and the impacts of urbanization of forest degradation. Topographical maps from the Survey of India have been used to mark the study area's boundary. Forest degradation mapping has been conducted through spatiotemporal analysis of LANDSAT and Google Earth imageries for the years 1989, 2001, 2013, and 2020. The decadal change was evaluated throughout the period to delineate the sites of encroachment. The change analysis revealed that 56.6% of the forest area has remained primarily dense; 6.46% of the area has remained unchanged as agricultural area, while almost 0.95% of the total agricultural area has been converted into built-up land or has become barren. Spatiotemporal change analysis also revealed that, overall, 85.1% of the study area has remained unchanged and 4.7% of the area has changed in some form or other. Ground truthing through Google Earth imageries for various periods reveals an increase in the built-up land along the coastal stretch and the north-eastern part of the region. In some places, agricultural lands have been abandoned, which have then been converted into shrublands. The unorganized growth of built-up land and decrease in the forest and agricultural lands have necessitated extensive fieldwork for developing guidelines for the protection of forest areas and planning of built-up and agricultural lands.