Land use land cover changes in the major cities of Nepal from 1990 to 2020

• Published in: Environmental and sustainability indicators Vol. 17; p. 100227
• Main Authors: Devkota, Praval, Dhakal, Sameer, Shrestha, Sujata, Shrestha, Uttam Babu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 01-02-2023; Elsevier
• Subjects: Google earth engine; Land use land cover change; Remote sensing; Urbanization; Urbanization; Land use land cover change; Google earth engine; Remote sensing
• ISSN: 2665-9727; 2665-9727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.indic.2023.100227

Nepal—one of the most rapidly urbanizing countries in the world—has witnessed unplanned urbanization in recent decades. Nevertheless, spatial-temporal dynamics of land use land cover (LULC) in major cities of Nepal are not well understood. This study investigates LULC changes in the 12 rapidly urbanizing cities of Nepal from 1990 to 2020. Freely accessible Landsat images and Google Earth Engine (GEE), a cloud-based analysis platform were used to classify the city landscape into five major classes: vegetation, agriculture, barren, water body, and built-up using a random forest algorithm. Built-up areas have continuously increased in the Nepali cities mostly at expense of agricultural lands thus agriculture areas have decreased, and vegetation areas have followed mixed trends during each of the three decades. Biratnagar, Janakpur, Kathmandu, Nepalgunj, and Rajbiraj showed an overall increase in built-up areas at the expense of vegetation and agricultural lands while Bharatpur, Birendranagar, Dhangadhi, Ghorahi, Hetauda, Pokhara, and Tulsipur showed an overall decrease in agricultural areas with increased built-up areas and vegetation from 1990 to 2020. This study will assist the policymakers, city planners, and local governments to formulate sustainable urban development strategies and plans to prevent haphazard urban growth while preserving the city's agricultural lands to promote local food supply and green areas to ensure an uninhibited flow of ecosystem services in the cities.
•Nepal is a rapidly urbanizing country in the world.•This study analyses 30 years of land use land cover change in the 12 cities of Nepal.•Built-up areas have continuously increased either at the expense of agricultural lands or vegetation or both.