Change detection is useful in many land use and land cover (LULC) applications, such as land degradation, deforestation, settlement, and desertification and landslide susceptibility. Geospatial technologies such as remote sensing and the Geographic Information System significantly enhance the identification of areas classified as rural, forest or settlements. Satellite remote sensing data, with their repetitive nature, has proved to be very useful in mapping land use / land cover patterns and changes over time. Quantification of such changes is possible through GIS techniques even if the resultant spatial datasets are of different scales/ resolutions. Such studies have helped in understanding the dynamics of human activities in space and time. The rationale of this study was to evaluate land use /land cover changes on Chetambe hills from 2000 to 2015 for sustainable land use planning. Analysis of the satellite images was done using GIS to determine the rate of change of human activities along the slopes with time. For the period 2000 to 2015, four satellite images were obtained within a time span of five years that is, 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015. These images were analysed using GIS and regression models to obtain the LULC change. The study revealed that settlement had the highest variability across all the periods in relation to other land cover/land use like forests, wooded grassland, annual and perennial cropland. The study showed an image difference of 815 pixels (6.252%) in 2002 – 2006, 1699 pixels (12.267%) in 2006 – 2010, 314 pixels (2.293%) in 2.293%) in 2010 – 2012 and finally 448 pixels (3.199%) in 2012 – 2014. This study recommends that areas with higher LULC change need government intervention to protect them through legislation and penalties to avoid further land degradation on the hills.

Keywords: Land use, Land cover, Remote Sensing, GIS, Land Degradation, Chetambe Hills.

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