IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS) Volume 22, Issue 7, Ver. 1 (July. 2017) PP 54-60 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845. www.iosrjournals.org DOI: 10.9790/0837-2207015460 www.iosrjournals.org 54 | Page Assessment of the impact of land use change on natural resource land of Srinagar Metropolitan Region of Kashmir Valley Zahoor A. Nengroo, Arif H. Shah and M. Sultan Bhat Abstract: Land is the basic natural resource that provides habitat and sustenance for living organisms, as well as being a major focus of economic activities. It is a finite resource and put to many competing uses. In India land is a source of livelihood for 60 % of the population through agriculture and related activities. Urbanization and resultant population growth has led to the consequent demand for land, water and biological resources and has put tremendous pressure on land. The objective of this paper is to document how this urbanization process has expanded throughout the study area and to explore how lands comprising the natural resource base, particularly agriculture and wetlands were lost and replaced by a matrix of the built and other uses of urban demand. The present study was carried out by making use of two time land use/ land cover maps of 1971 and 2010 and associated change due to urbanization was calculated. An extensive accuracy assessments of the satellite-derived maps was conducted, most of which were produced by using widely available multi-temporal Landsat imagery. The change in urbanization was derived from built-up expansion maps (the built environment) for 1971 and 2010, from which the loss in agricultural and wetland resource lands that occurred during the last forty years were calculated. The analysis revealed that there is a fast intrusion of urban activities in the agricultural landscape of the peri-urban areas. Further, wetlands are at the verge of extinction owing to their high susceptibility to encroachment which has not only resulted in threat to their ecology but also reduced their capacity as flood absorption basin. Key words: Urbanization, Multi-temporal, Accuracy Assessment, Impervious, Land sat I. INTRODUCTION With rapid economic development and population growth, urbanization is taking place at an unprecedented pace around the world, especially in developing countries. (Liu, et al.,2008).Estimates indicate a level of urbanization in the world of only 1.6% around 1600 A.D. and 2.2% at the beginning of the 19 th century and this is estimated to fluctuate between 4 and 7 % in the mid-19 th century. Today the degree of urbanization exceeds 80% in developed countries (Antrop, 2004). In the case of developing countries, the level of urbanization is relatively lower, however, the speed of urbanization is five times faster than that of the developed countries (Lopez et.al., 2001).Furthermore, metropolitan population outside central cities has grown faster than downtown areas in many regions, indicating a strong tendency of the outward expansion of urban areas (Angel et al., 2005). In fact, many cities are rapidly growing along their fringes, engulfing vast tracts of natural resource lands (Farmlands, forests and wetlands) and transforming them into industrial and commercial areas, or suburban developments. In view of rapidly growing cities and sectoral change with a declining contribution from agriculture to the national product and employment, the change of land use from cropland to other forms is increasing rapidly. From1990 to the year 2020 a total of approximately 14 million hectares (approx.475,000 ha/yr.) in developing countries will be converted for urban purposes (Rosegrant, et al.1997). Even though this loss of potential cropland does not limit agricultural growth globally, in countries like China in which only nine percent of the area can be used for agricultural purposes, major concern about loss of land due to infrastructure and urbanization exists or, at least, should exist. At the same time urban sprawl have changed the land-use/land cover and has resulted in direct ecosystem loss, as well as fragmentation causing decreases in wetland quality and increases in wetland stress (Nathan, et al., 2006). Urban landscape results from the interactions between social and natural factors (Wang, et al., 2008), so urban wetland as a semi-natural ecosystem which is located in high urbanization areas is always interfered by human activities. The loss of natural resource land to human settlements is far more serious in India; about 1.5 million hectares of land (mostly agricultural) were consumed by uncontrolled urban growth between 1955-1985 and a further 800,000 hectares were expected to be transformed between 1985 and 2000 (Chabra, 1985). The majority of the mountainous population of the Himalaya depends upon agricultural and forest based natural resources for their livelihood (Ramakrishnan,1997) while the resources are sustainably maintained with traditional ecological knowledge (Dollo et al., 2005; Dollo, 2007; Farooquee et al., 2007).