Quantifying the influence of Chashma Right Bank Canal on land-use/land-cover and cropping pattern using remote sensing

The goal of this research is to employ remote sensing to assess the influence of the Chashma Right Bank Canal (CRBC) on land-use/land-cover (LULC) changes and cropping patterns in the Dera Ismail Khan District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. LULC changes and cropping patterns were quantified using multi-temporal Landsat images from 1990 to 2018. Our finding revealed that between 1990 and 2018, agriculture, build-up, and water bodies increased by 52.22%, 5.44%, and 2.06% respectively, at the cost of decreasing barren land (50.27%), sand (5.05%), and shrubland (4.41%). Similarly, between 1997 and 2017, crop types such as sugarcane, and rice field increased by 19.77%, and 1.79%, whereas wheat decreased by 22.23%. We found that CRBC significantly altered the LULC of the study area, resulting in favorable changes in land-cover and cropping patterns, emphasizing the relevance of irrigation projects.