Geospatial Assessment of Spatiotemporal LULC Dynamics in the Mula and Pravara River Basins - Gatha Cognition

Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) dynamics provide essential insights into landscape transformation and its implications for environmental sustainability, agricultural development, and watershed management. The present study investigates temporal changes in LULC within the Mula and Pravara River Basins (MPRBs), located in the eastern region of the Western Ghats in Ahilyanagar District, Maharashtra, India. Together, the two basins cover approximately 5,551.3 km² and form part of the larger Godavari River basin. LULC changes during 1994–2025 were assessed using multi-temporal Landsat imagery, including Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper (TM) for 1994 and Landsat-9 Operational Land Imager-2 (OLI-2) and Thermal Infrared Sensor-2 (TIRS-2) for 2025. The classified imagery was grouped into six major classes: barren land, cropland, natural vegetation, roads and settlements, scrubland, and water bodies. The results revealed distinct LULC trajectories between the two basins. In the Pravara River Basin, cropland increased from 36.3% to 40.3%, while barren land decreased from 25.3% to 14.6% and scrubland increased from 18.1% to 24.7%. In the Mula River Basin, cropland increased substantially from 15.5% to 31.0%, whereas barren land declined from 25.1% to 15.7% and roads and settlements increased from 0.9% to 4.6%. Transition-matrix analysis using the ArcMap Combine tool quantified the direction and magnitude of class-to-class conversions and identified substantial transitions involving barren, scrub, cropland, and developed land. The 2025 classification achieved an overall accuracy of 89%, with a Kappa coefficient of 0.8959. The findings demonstrate spatially heterogeneous LULC transformation, with more pronounced agricultural and developed-land expansion in the Mula Basin. The study provides a quantitative baseline for future LULC monitoring and supports integrated land, water, and watershed management in the Deccan Trap region of Western Maharashtra.