Spatial Modeling of River Bank Shifting and Associated LULC Changes of the Kaljani River in Himalayan Foothills

Abstract

\n Channel dynamics is an inherent characteristic of the river in the floodplain region. The river bankline shifting and associate land use land cover (LULC) change is not only geomorphological but also an environmentally vital hazardous issue. It is a significant impact on the ecosystem and human life. GIS-based, DSAS and CA-Markov models are efficient to accurately measure historical and predictionevaluation of the relation between channel shifting and LULC change. In this study, forty-eight years (1972-2020) of earth observatory data have been used to demarcate the channel bank position and LULC change detection along the Kaljani River at the eastern Himalayan foothill. During 1998-2008, very high erosion rate on both bankline, which are about -4.48 m/y and -3.48 m/y at the left and right, respectively compared the others time frame. The overall result of the predicted bankline represents that the bulky expansion will occur along the left bank and sediment accretion will take place at the right bank. Among the three zones, both banks of zone ‘A’ (lower part of the river) is the worst affected part in the past, present, and future time. The LULC change of all six classes from 1972 to 1998 was very high when compared with the change between 1998 and 2020. Moreover, the long profile, hypsometric curve value, and the Soil Conservation Service Curve Number (SCS-CN) value have been a significant help in understanding and identification of consequences reasons. The level of accuracy is validated by the observed bankline positions (2020) with predicted bankline (2020) and observed LULC (2020) to predicted LULC (2020) empirically with RMSE and statistical test. Therefore, the output of the prediction not only serves as the spatial guidelines for monitoring future trends of channel shifting and land use planning management.