Utilizing Sentinel-2 Satellite Imagery for LULC and NDVI Change Dynamics for Gelephu, Bhutan

Abstract

Gelephu, located in the Himalayan region, has undergone significant development activities due to its suitable topography and geographic location. This has led to rapid urbanization in recent years. Assessing land use land cover (LULC) dynamics and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) can provide important information about urbanization trends and changes in vegetation health, respectively. The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) techniques based on various satellite products offers a unique opportunity to analyze these changes at a local scale. Exploring Bhutan’s mandate to maintain 60% forest cover and analyzing LULC transitions and vegetation changes using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery at 10 m resolution can provide important insights into potential future impacts. To examine these, we first performed LULC mapping for Gelephu for 2016 and 2023 using a Random Forest (RF) classifier and identified LULC changes. Second, the study assessed the dynamics of vegetation change within the study area by analysing the NDVI for the same period. Furthermore, the study also characterized the resulting LULC change for Gelephu Thromde, a sub-administrative municipal entity, as a result of the notable intensity of the infrastructure development activities. The current study used a framework to collect Sentinel-2 satellite data, which was then used for pre-and post-processing to create LULC and NDVI maps. The classification model achieved high accuracy, with an area under the curve (AUC) of up to 0.89. The corresponding LULC and NDVI statistics were analysed to determine the current status of the LULC and vegetation indices, respectively. The LULC change analysis reveals urban growth of 5.65% and 15.05% for Gelephu and Gelephu Thromde, respectively. The NDVI assessment shows significant deterioration in vegetation health with a 75.11% loss of healthy vegetation in Gelephu between 2016 and 2023. The results serve as a basis for strategy adaption required to examine the environmental protection and sustainable development management, and the policy interventions to minimize and balance the ecosystem, taking into account urban landscape.