Analysis and Prediction of Land Cover Changes using the Land Change Modeler (LCM): A Case Study of Candolim, Bardez-Goa, India

Earth is changing ever since it is born. Once entire earth was covered by molten material which later took the shape of the lithosphere. The primordial lithosphere had only land and water as land cover and later other land covers such as forests, grasslands, wetlands etc. took shape. With the humanization of the Earth, the landscape was used for development and conservation resulting in land use. Land is a fixed resource and every accessible piece of land has been utilized by man for his needs. The land use continues to change, today’s built-up area may have been agricultural land a decade ago or today’s plantation might have been forest. Detection of changes in the use of land will offer policymakers and planners to predict the future land cover and will help in the proper planning and management of towns and cities. Globally, the tour and travel industry has played an important role in bringing drastic changes in land use. Tourism leaves both constructive and destructive imprints on the environment. Of late, ‘beach tourism’ has fascinated a large number of travellers in the world. In Goa, tourism arrived immediately after its liberation in 1961 from the oppressive rule of the Portuguese with the appearance of 'Hippies' in Calangute, Anjuna, Vagator, Baga and Candolim villages of Bardez taluka. Tourism has played a vital role in the overall economic development of these villages and has led to change in the character of these villages. Hence, this study makes an in-depth analysis of the impact of tourism on the land use land cover in Candolim village of Bardez Taluka. The spatio-temporal analysis of land cover change is undertaken using Image Processing software Idrisi Selva 17.0 and ArcGIS 10.3. Landsat multitemporal satellite imageries of the year 2001 and 2021 and Google Earth data of the same period are used to define the current changes in the land use land cover patterns. ArcScene was used for 3D creation and modelling of Candolim village between the years 2001 and 2021. The study indicates that due to unplanned tourism growth, six land parcels such as the area under forestland, sandy beaches, barren land, agricultural land, plantations and shrub land have declined by 0.94, 2.33, 3.42, 1.52, 0.23 and 6.83 per cent respectively. Net change to Built-up land from different classes and cubic trend map of 2001 to 2021 depicts that shrub Land was more vulnerable to change into built-up land at a large scale.