Geospatial approach for characterizing agricultural land use in district Anantnag of Kashmir Valley Ali Iram1,*, Kimani Nayar A.2, Lone F.A.1, Mir Ikhlaq A.1 1Division of Environmental Sciences, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar, Srinagar - 190 025, Jammu and Kashmir, (India) 2Division of Soil Sciences, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar, Srinagar - 190 025, Jammu and Kashmir, (India) *e-mail: geoiram@gmail.com
Online published on 2 April, 2024. Abstract Agriculture acts as the backbone of the livelihood and economy of the Kashmir valley. However, over the years, the rigorous increase in the population, climate change and economic development has resulted in unprecedented change in the agriculture sector in the region. The current study was carried out to assess the agricultural trends in district Anantnag of Kashmir valley from 1981-2019. For this study multitemporal remote sensing data from Landsat TM/ETM+/OLI (1981-2019), ASTER (2003), IRSP6 LISS IV (2018), along with SOI topographic maps were used to assess spatial trends in agriculture. The analysis of the results shows that agriculture is in degenerative phase registering a decrease of 6597 ha in area from 1981 to 2019 which is approximately 20.5% of the total area (32110 ha) in agriculture. The decadal analysis of the agriculture area shows a reduction of 5.6%, 4.9%, 7.6%, and 4.2% from 1981-1992, 1992-2003, 2003-2012 and 2012-2019 respectively. In addition, the study concluded that climate and socioeconomic factors are the main drivers of agricultural change. This consistency in the depletion of agricultural land could have serious implications for the livelihood and food security of the region. Top Keywords Agriculture, Anantnag, Climate change, Remote sensing, Temperature, Precipitation. Top |