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In the light of growing debates over climate change, population growth, and associated activities, wetland ecosystems have gained immeasurable importance as they have potential to serve both environmentally and economically. Hence, the evaluation of wetland ecosystems dynamics and development of comprehensive management policies demand accurate assessment of land use-land cover changes over time and distinct hydrological processes taking place in such aquatic ecosystems. Assessment of such changes is imperative to deal with various perspectives of resource management, ecosystem conservation, sustainable development and land use planning, etc. The present study aims to examine the spatiotemporal dynamics of LULC in wetland ecosystems of Kashmir Valley using Landsat datasets of the period 1994-2018. Maximum likelihood classifier was used to quantify LULC changes in ERDAS IMAGINE (14). A total of seven categories were classified viz. forest, plantation, marshy land, water body, horticulture, agriculture, and built-up. From the present analysis, two patterns of LULC changes were observed in the study area (in both cases: Wular, as well as, Hokersar and Anchar): (1) Continuous increase in area of respective categories: agriculture, horticulture, and built-up (Wular Lake); forest, plantation, agriculture, and built-up (Hokersar and Anchar Lake); (2) a consistent decrease in categories like: forest, plantation, water body, and marshy land (Wular Lake); water body, marshy land, agriculture (Hokersar and Anchar Lake). Most significant change in terms of area has been observed in plantation −5378.18 ha, water body −3954.94 ha, and built-up +2556.18 (Wular Lake); horticulture +4884.3 ha, built-up +6071.96 ha, agriculture −11,605.43 ha, and water body −106.01 ha (Hokersar and Anchar Lake). The LULC transformation, mostly driven by human-induced factors, pose a severe threat to wetland ecosystems of Kashmir Valley. Anthropogenic activities threatening the wetland ecosystems may include urban development, agriculture and horticulture practices, impacts of insecticides and pesticides, fertilizers, climate change and invasion of alien species.

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Chilika Lake is the largest coastal lagoon on the eastern coast of India. The aerial extension of the lake fluctuates between 1165 km2 to 906 km2. The opening of new inlet into the lake has enriched its biodiversity but also has increased the rate of siltation, which inturn affected the lake’s water holding capacity, causing ecological repercussions and impacting its flora and fauna. The RUSLE model integrated with remote sensing and GIS techniques was used to assess the soil loss in watershed of Chilika Lake. The model takes into account various factor viz. Crop /cover management factor (C), Soil erodibility factor (K), slope length (L), Conservation support practice factor (P), Rainfall erosivity factor (R), and steepness factor (S) to estimate potential soil loss. The results of the study reveal that 486.92 km2 i.e., 73.16% area of the Chilika watershed falls under least risk category of soil erosion, 44.17 km2 (6.6%) under moderate category, while, about 11% is at high, 8.8% at very high, and 0.043 at severe risk of soil erosion. The analysis estimates the annual average soil loss rate in the catchment of Chilika Lake to be 32.41 ton/ha/yr. The raster layers developed to study spatial soil loss indicate that the catchment of the lake is under the grip of soil erosion and siltation problems. Therefore, the study recommends immediate action of conservation and management planning processes to save the lake from further degradation.

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