Madras Agricultural Journal
Loading.. Please wait
Research Article | Open Access | Peer Review

Spatiotemporal Analysis of Land Use/Land Cover Changes and Urban Growth Dynamics in Salem District, India (1985–2024): Integrating Elevation and Infrastructure Networks

Volume : 112
Issue: March
Pages: 68 - 73
Download

Abstract


This study examines the spatial and temporal Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) changes in the Salem district, Tamil Nadu, over nearly four decades (1985–2024). Using remote sensing data and geospatial techniques, the landscape was classified into five major categories: agriculture, built-up, barren land, forest, and waterbodies. LULC data for 1985 and 2005 were obtained from national repositories, while the 2024 classification was generated from Sentinel-2 imagery using the Random Forest algorithm within the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. The results reveal significant urban expansion, reduced agricultural and forest areas, and a rise in barren land. Spatial analysis indicates that urban growth is strongly associated with transportation networks and low elevation areas. These findings highlight the need for integrated land use planning and sustainable resource management to mitigate the environmental impacts of rapid urbanization

DOI
Pages
68 - 73
Creative Commons
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Madras Agricultural Students' Union in Madras Agricultural Journal (MAJ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited by the user.

Keywords


Land Use and Land Cover (LULC); Urban expansion; Google Earth Engine (GEE); Random forest; Remote sensing; Salem district
footer

Copyright © Madras Agricultural Journal | Masu Journal All rights reserved.