INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3, MARCH 2013 ISSN 2277-8616 235 IJSTR©2013 www.ijstr.org Dynamics Of Land Use Land Cover For Sustainability: A Case Of Shillong, Meghalaya, India P K Ryngnga, Bring B L Ryntathiang. Abstract: - Land use/land cover change in urban area is a complex and dynamic process that involves both natural and human systems. At present, urban area in developing nation is experiencing rapid urbanization and undergoing physical transformation. It is therefore, essential that urban planners and managers understand the past and present land use land cover changes in order to predict its impacts on the society, economy and environment of the cities. This present study aims to explore and assess land use land cover changes in Shillong, India which has experienced significant increase of population during the last three decades mainly due to the growth in service and educational sector. The study monitored land use land cover changes since 1972 in order to assess the development of services activities and its impact on physical transformation. Urban built-up area is an uncontrolled phenomenon with unplanned nature of development. However, urban expansion intensity index in the study area revealed that high speed of land use land cover transformation also occurred sporadically throughout the outskirt of the tribal town also after the state bifurcation in 1972 that perhaps it is a cause of concern to planners. Index Terms: - Assessment, Dynamics, GIS, Land use, Land cover, Urban, Sustainability ———————————————————— 1 INTRODUCTION LAND USE is referred to “man’s activities and the various which are carried on land” LAND COVER is referred to “natural vegetation , rock/soil artificial cover and other noticed on the land”. (NRSA 1989). Since both land use and land cover closely related and are not mutually exclusive are interchangeable as the former can be inferred based on the land cover and on the contextual evidence. The terms Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) are often use simultaneously to describe maps that provide information about the types of features found on the earth’s surface(land use) and the human activity. Land Cover is an important input parameters for a numbers of agricultural, hydrological and ecological models which constitute necessary tools for development, planning and management of the natural resources in the territory. Land use/land cover map is not new concept but it has been prepared since quite a long time with the help of conventional methods which consume rather a long time. In the present era of all round development where pressure on exploitation of earth’s resources is accelerating at fast pace, there is no urgent need for speedy acquisition of new information and updating the existing one. In this respect Remote Sensing technology provides an effective additional tool for speedy acquisition of information at regional and district level. The information on land use in the form of maps and statistical data is very vital for the spatial planning ,management and utilization of land for agriculture, forestry, urban industrial, pasture ,environmental studies , economic production and etc. today with the growing population and low man land ratio and the increasing land degradation, the need for the optimum land utilization assumes much greater relevance. The information requirements for land use mapping comprise reliable up to date and comprehensive data on physical, ecological and socio- economic resources. Remote sensing are particularly suited to provide suitable information, the hallmark of physical data requirements as it is essentially agreed by remote sensing specialist that it has the potential to make the most significant contribution in the area of land use data collection. It refers to “mans” activities on land which are directly related to land. Land is the most important natural resources which embody soil, water and associated flora and fauna involving the total system. The growing pressure of population coupled with increasing demands on land resources has brought extra pressure on the available land. (Roa et al 1996) In order to monitor and evaluate dynamic land use/land cover changes, GIS and remote sensing can effectively be used (Harris and Batty, 2001; HU Zhao-ling et al., 2007). Remote sensing has the capability to acquire data timely at regular interval and becomes useful data source for land use monitoring (Yeh and Li, 1997). In addition, GIS that has the capabilities to manipulate and analyze spatial and temporal data can be used to map, monitor and identify driving forces and measure the intensity of land use/land cover transformation (Sui and Zeng, 2001; HU Zhaoling et al., 2007). Both will provide the understanding on the dynamic process of urban land use/land cover transformation and plan towards sustainable urban development. 2.1 Study Area Shillong the district Headquarter of East Khasi Hills, the capital city of Meghalaya is located at 25° 35' north latitude and 91° 53' east longitude occupying a valley called Shillong valley of about 45 sq km in area. It is about 103 km to the south of Guwahati and is located at altitude of 1500 above mean sea level. It is an agglomeration of the six urban centers. Shillong Municipality, Shillong Cantonment, Madanriting, Mawlai, Nongthymmai and Pynthorumkhrah. It has a population of about 267662 according to the 2001 census. Shillong owes its importance due to its administrative function and about 55% of the total workers of the town are engaged in non-agricultural activities. The percentage of workers engaged in industry is 10.5% in trade and commerce 17.7% and in transport, communities, etc. Shillong is also a very important educational center in North East India as a whole and it is a place of attraction for tourism industry. The study area, therefore, is suitable for such kind of studies in order to evaluate the impact of these activities on land use land cover changes in the past thirty years. So far as morphology of the city is concerned it is found that the residential areas accounts for 74% of the total area of the city and defense14%. The commercial area occupies 3.5% of the city. The main co mmercial areas of the city are Barabazar and Police bazaar. Late 1990’s saw other areas such as Laitumkhrah, Polo, etc emerge as secondary commercial centers. Invariably all the towns of Shillong Urban