DETECTING LAND COVER CHANGES IN SITES HOSTING PROTECTED CULTURAL HERITAGE: A CASE EXAMPLE OF UNESCO PROTECTED SITE IN NALANDA, INDIA

摘要

India is home to several important archaeological sites of the world. The increasing pressure of population and anthropogenic factors have made it prone to rapid change due to human activities. This study discusses the changes in land use and land cover for the past decades in the area altering the rich cultural heritage in that region. The land cover and land use changes in terms of deforestation, urban growth and increase in agricultural activity have been evaluated in the present research. Some of these parameters have been quantified using remote sensing and GIS data by analyzing time series of images from 2009 to 2019. The area selected for study is Nalanda Mahavihara, a cultural heritage site that comes under Archeological Survey of India and UNESCO world heritage site. A knowledge driven classification based on Support Vector Mechanics (SVM) and Classification and Regression Trees (CART) algorithms along with spectral indices was used to detect the current and historical changes of cultural heritage site. Landsat and Sentinel images of the years 2009, 2014 and 2019 have been processed to detect the current and historical changes of cultural heritage site and the area surrounding it. The classification scheme includes the following eight classes: 1 Built-up, 2 Water Bodies, (3) Agricultural Area, (4) Natural Vegetation, (5) Grassland, (6) Wetland, (7) Ponds and (8) Open Land, Roads, for the evaluation of the land cover changes over the period of time. From the past decades the human activity in form of urbanization and farming has increased significantly around the heritage site. The accuracy evaluation was carried out with the ground truth data from the present day survey and field work. The change analysis suggests the gradual and steady destruction of natural and cultural wealth of this area leading to complete fragility. The increased agricultural activity has led to the exposure of bricks of the ancient structures with in the archaeological site. Also, in some areas the mounds which could have been probable sites for further excavation have been covered by building activities. These human induced activities are destroying unique cultural heritage sites in this region.