Channel migration and its impact on land use/land cover using RS and GIS: A study on Khowai River of Tripura, North-East India

Abstract

Channel migration becomes the main characteristic of the Khowai River of Tripura. A study on bank erosion and channel migration of the present course of the Khowai River through the synclinal valley of Atharamura and Baramura Hill Ranges indicates that the area is under active erosion since long back. In this study, the rate of channel migration has been assessed and variation of sinuosity index and radius of curvature have also been calculated. The study of the active channel width and channel position from 1975 to 2014 indicates that a large portion of land along both the banks of the Khowai River has already been eroded away. This work also documented land use changes in its surrounding flood plain area using supervised image classification. Overall accuracy of the land use classification ranges between 88% and 93%. The whole study is being done utilising the remote sensing imagery (2014), SOI topographical map (1975) and GIS technology. The land use classification shows that there is an increase in built up area and decrease in net sown area. The channel migration directly affects the land use and land use change has direct effect on the flood plain dwellers of the study area. All the assessments of this study highlight a significant message of immense vulnerability of Khowai River and also provide news about geomorphological instabilities of the study area.

Keywords

• Channel migration
• Land use
• Khowai River
• Vulnerability