Abstract：
The land use/land cover change is a local driver of environmental change having cascading impacts and implications at the global level, and therefore requires appreciable consideration when perceived from sustainability perspectives. Kerala, the southernmost state of India, has undergone a dramatic transition from a traditional agrarian economy to a modern thriving economy involving the irrational exploitation of natural resources, precisely, land and its components. The present study addresses how land is being changed along an urbanization gradient in the most agglomerative city in the state, Kochi, during the last one and half decades. High-resolution remote sensing data available from the Google Earth Pro pertaining to the four time periods, i.e., 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020, representing urban, suburban, and rural areas, were analysed to estimate the changes in land use land cover. A semi-structured interview was conducted at the household level to identify the major drivers of land use change. The results indicated the presence of two major and divergent trends; the first one is the intensification of land use activities at the rate of 1.37% per annum, primarily driven by urbanization and infrastructure developments, and the second one is the fallowing and abandonment of land (at the rate of 0.21% per annum) driven by the increased cost of cultivation. The rates of change are more prominent in the rural areas while the urban grids are nearing saturation occupying nearly two-thirds of the area with urban features at the expense of greenery. Though the progression with respect to urbanization and infrastructure developments is expected, the fallowing and abandonment of land is unanticipated, raising serious questions in the developmental pathways to achieve Sustainable Development Goals in the State of Kerala.
摘要：
土地利用/土地覆盖变化是环境变化的地方驱动因素，在全球范围内具有级联影响和影响。因此，从可持续性的角度来看，需要考虑。喀拉拉邦,印度最南端的州,经历了从传统农业经济到现代繁荣经济的戏剧性转变，涉及对自然资源的非理性开发，准确地说,土地及其组成部分。本研究探讨了该州最集聚的城市的土地如何沿城市化梯度变化，Kochi,在过去的15年里。GoogleEarthPro提供的有关四个时间段的高分辨率遥感数据，即，2005年、2010年、2015年和2020年，代表城市，郊区,郊区农村地区,进行了分析，以估计土地利用土地覆被的变化。在家庭一级进行了半结构化访谈，以确定土地利用变化的主要驱动因素。结果表明存在两个主要的和不同的趋势；第一个是以每年1.37%的速度加剧土地利用活动，主要由城市化和基础设施发展驱动，第二个是耕种成本增加导致的土地退耕和废弃(每年0.21%)。在农村地区，变化率更为突出，而城市电网已接近饱和，占据了城市特色区域的近三分之二，而绿化却以牺牲绿色为代价。虽然城市化和基础设施发展的进展是预期的，土地的休耕和废弃是意料之外的，在喀拉拉邦实现可持续发展目标的发展途径中提出了严重问题。
