Land use and land cover change of Chanthaburi watershed following 1999, 2006 and 2013 floods

Abstract

The application of remote sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) has become an effective tool and widely used in monitoring the environment on the earth surface. In this study, Landsat imageries were used as a data to deal with the assessment of land use and land cover changes (LULC) before and after the 3-year floods in 1999, 2006 and 2013. The images were classified by supervised classification process and it can be identified as 9 classes consisting of paddy field, field crop, para rubber, orchard, aquacultural land, forest land, mangrove forest, urban and built-up area, and water bodies. The result revealed that the main classes are forest and orchard. After that, LULC were then reclassified into 4 main classes for change detection, comprising of agricultural land, forest land, urban and built-up area, and water bodies land. The results showed that LULC change occurs among agricultural land into the urban built-up area. The flood vulnerability map was generated by various thematic data, namely, Digital Elevation Model (DEM), landform, LULC, and the flood inundation area. These data were calculated with a scoring method to classify flood vulnerability areas consisting of high, low and non-flood vulnerability. The result of analysis revealed that approximately 3.71% of the watershed area is categorized as a high vulnerability area, mainly in agricultural land and urban and built-up area. Furthermore, the finding in this study presented that the socioeconomics factor plays an important role in LULC in Chanthaburi watershed. The results of this study can be used as a data for a decision making and planning land use and land cover management