Spatio-temporal classification of land use and land cover and its changes in Kerala using remote sensing and machine learning approach.

Land use and land cover (LULC) analysis gives important information on how the region has evolved over time. Kerala, a land with an extensive and dynamic history of land-use changes, has, until now, lacked comprehensive investigations into this history. So the current study focuses on Kerala, one of the ecologically diverse states in India with complex topography, through Landsat images taken from 1990 to 2020 using two different machine learning classifications, random forest (RF) and classification and regression trees (CART) on Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. RF and CART are versatile machine learning algorithms frequently employed for classification and regression, offering effective tools for predictive modelling across diverse domains due to their flexibility and data-handling capabilities. Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalised Differences Built-up Index (NDBI), Modified Normalised Difference Water Index (MNDWI), and Bare soil index (BSI) are integral indices utilised to enhance the precision of land use and land cover classification in satellite imagery, playing a crucial role by providing valuable insights into specific landscape attributes that may be challenging to identify using individual spectral bands alone. The results showed that the performance of RF is better than that of CART in all the years. Thus, RF algorithm outputs are used to infer the change in the LULC for three decades. The changes in the NDVI values point out the loss of vegetation for the urban area expansion during the study period. The increasing value of NDBI and BSI in the state indicates growth in high-density built-up areas and barren land. The slight reduction in the value of MNDWI indicates the shrinking water bodies in the state. The results of LULC showed the urban expansion (158.2%) and loss of agricultural area (15.52%) in the region during the study period. It was noted the area of the barren class, as well as the water class, decreased steadily from 1990 to 2020. The results of the current study will provide insight into the land-use planners, government, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for the necessary sustainable land-use practices.

Machine learning-based assessment of long-term climate variability of Kerala.

Studies on historical patterns of climate variables and climate indices have attained significant importance because of the increasing frequency and severity of extreme events worldwide. While the recent events in the tropical state of Kerala (India) have drawn attention to the catastrophic impacts of extreme rainfall events leading to landslides and loss of human lives, a comprehensive and long-term spatiotemporal assessment of climate variables is still lacking. This study investigates the long-term trend analysis (119 years) of climate variables at 5% significance level over the state using gridded datasets of daily rainfall (0.25° × 0.25° spatial resolution) and temperature (1° × 1° spatial resolution) at annual and seasonal scales (south-west monsoon, north-east monsoon, winter and summer). Five trend analysis techniques including the Mann-Kendall test (MK), three modified Mann-Kendall tests and innovative trend analysis (ITA) test were performed in the study. It is evident from the trend analysis results that more than 83% of grid points were showing negative trends in annual and south-west monsoon season rainfall series (at a mean rate of 39.70 mm and 28.30 mm per decade respectively). All the trend analysis tests identified statistically significant increasing trends in mean and maximum temperature at annual and seasonal scales (0.10 to 0.20 °C/decade) for all grids. The K-means clustering algorithm delineated 59 grid points into five clusters for annual rainfall, illustrating a clear geographical pattern over the study area. There is a clear gradient in rainfall distribution and concentration inside the state at annual as well as seasonal scales. The majority of annual rainfall is concentrated in a few months of the year. That may lead the state vulnerable to water scarcity in non-rainy seasons.