02
GROWTH OF MARBLE INDUSTRY AND LAND USE LAND COVER DYNAMICS INRAJSAMAND TEHSIL, RAJASTHAN INDIA (1998-2018)
Rajesh Kumar Yadav1 and Seema Jalan2
1

Research Scholar, MLS University, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India
Professor & Head, Department of Geography, MLS University, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India
Email: seemajalan1@gmail.com, rajesh.kumar201026@yahoo.com

2

How to cite this paper:
Yadav, Rajesh Kumar andJalan, Seema (2021) Growthof Marble Industry and Land
Use Land Cover Dynamics in
Rajsamand Tehsil, Rajasthan
India (1998-2018), Journal of
Global Resources, Vol. 07
(02)
DOI:
10.46587/JGR.2021.v07i02.002

Received: 21 March 2021
Reviewed: 10 April 2021
Revised: 11 May 2021
Final Accepted: 21 May 2021

Freely available Online
www.isdesr.org

Abstract: Rajsamand tehsil is one of the major marbles
producing regions in the state of Rajasthan. The tehsil
contributes approximately 23 percent of marble production of
the state. Predominance of limestone and dolomite rocks in
the geological structure and facilitating transport connectivity
has resulted in phenomenal and continuous growth of marble
industry in the tehsil. The growth has been accompanied bysignificant land use/ land cover (LULC) change. Mapping andmonitoring of LULC change is vital for land management andsustainable development. The paper examines the LULC
change in Rajsamand tehsil context of growth of marble
industry over a period of two decades from 1998 to 2018.
Multi-temporal satellite data comprising USGS Landsat 5 TM
images of 1998, Landsat 7 ETM+ image of 2008 andLandsat- 8 OLI image of 2018 has been used for LULC
mapping. Mapping has been done using Supervised
Classification using of Maximum Likelihood Classifier. Six
LULC classes have been delineated - marble mining,
agricultural land and built-up, scrub land, water bodies andwaste/barren land, followed by post classification change
detection. Comparative analysis of LULC distribution over the
study period shows that rapid growth of the marble industry
has resulted in positive change in the area under wastelandand built-up.
Keywords: Land Use/Land Cover, Remote Sensing
and GIS, Marble Industry, Change Detection

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Introduction
Changes in land use and land cover (LULC) on the earth's surface are generally divided into
two concepts: land use and land cover (Barnsley et al. 2001). Land cover, which is describedby the distribution of vegetation, surface properties, and the topography of the earth. Landuse covers both the way humans and their habitat usage (Chaudhary et al. 2008). Global
land cover data sets that are accurate and up to date are required for a variety of global change
research studies, including ecosystem assessment and environmental modelling (Giri et al.
2005). The importance of investigating LULC, its trends and patterns of change, and theirconsequences is a prerequisite for planning and sustainable natural resource management(Petit et al. 2001). Evaluation of LULC dynamics is critical for assessing global and regional
ecosystem changes. LULC alterations show a clear connection between the man and his
environment (Fayaz et al. 2020). LULC change has become a fundamental component ofcontemporary strategies for natural resource management and environmental monitoring (Kauland Sopan 2012). "Change detection is the process by observing changes in the status of an
object or phenomenon over time. It entails the capability of quantifying temporal effects throughthe use of multi-temporal datasets.” (Othman et al. 2013; Singh, 1989). Accurate and timelychange detection of the Surface of the earth's features is critical for comprehending theinteraction and relationship between natural and human phenomena, as well as for promoting
more effective decision-making (Lu et al. 2004). LULC changes occur rapidly in the vicinity ofsurface mining areas, causing serious environmental degradation to the landscape (Matejicek
et al. 2010).
Significant research has in the past demonstrated that land management, planning, andsustainable development need to mapping and monitoring LULC changes. Several researches
have shown that remote sensing technology is an effective tool for monitoring LULC changes
and evaluating the impacts of mining on the environment. Digital change detection is known asa process to detect and express land use changes based on co-registered multi-temporal
remote sensing data. (Moeletsi et al. 2017) have investigated the effectiveness of remotesensing technology in detecting land cover change caused by granite quarries in South Africa.
(Basommi et al. 2015) examine the uses of geospatial techniques for the assessment of LULC
dynamics of mining region in Wa east district of Ghana. (Borana et al. 2014) investigated the
LULC change associated with a sandstone quarry in Jodhpur and discovered that mining
activities led to significant land cover change. (Mouflis et al. 2008) used remote sensing,landscape metrics, and viewshed analysis to assess the environmental impact of marble
quarries on the Greek island of Thasos. The marble quarries studied by (Koruyan et al. 2012)
looked at the area expansion of their locations and changes in vegetation around the Mugla
region between 2001 and 2009 by using remote sensing. “While remote sensing enables theobservation of land surface changes, extracting information about those changes from satellite
data requires effective and automated change detection techniques”. (Roy et al. 2002).
Analysing changes in land use and land cover can provide useful information for regional
management and planning. Rapid, accurate, and dynamic monitoring of land use change isaccomplished by RS and GIS (Mishra et al. 2019).
Marble is a gleaming stone renowned for its pleasing colours, smooth and uniform
texture, moderate hardness, and gleaming polished surface with a silky feel. Their aesthetic
value makes them unique among other dimensional stones. In geological terms, it is ametamorphosed limestone formed through recrystallization and thermal and regional
metamorphism conditions. "Rajasthan distinguishes itself as having good quality marble as an
Indian resource. 20 districts in one or the other form have marble from 33 districts”. “Rajasthanalone accounts for approximately 89 percent of India and its processing capacity in the country
Journal of Global Resources, July 2021, Volume 07 (02) Rajesh Kumar Yadav and Seema Jalan Page 12 | 12

is approximately 95 percent” (Indian Bureau of Mines, 2014). Makrana, Rajsamand, Udaipur,
Abu Road, and Banswara are all significant processing centres in the state. The state has acapacity of around 1,000 million sq. ft. and 3,000 million sq. ft. per year for marble slab andpolished tiled production. In the state, various marbles are made, such as green marble, whitemarble, black marble and pink marble.
Rajsamand tehsil is one of the major marbles producing regions in the state of Rajasthan.
The tehsil contributes approximately 23 percent of marble production of the State.
Predominance of limestone and dolomite rocks in the geological structure and good transport
connectivity has resulted in phenomenal and continuous growth of marble industry in the tehsil.
The growth has been accompanied by significant LULC change. Thus, understanding the land
cover dynamics in the region is vital for effective land management and sustainable
development of the region. The present study investigates the LULC change over a period of
two decades from 1998 to 2018 in Rajsamand tehsil and analyses the increase in marble mining
area in context of its relationship with other LULC classes.
Study Area
Rajsamand tehsil is located in southern part of Rajsamand district covering 619 sq. km area
extending between 24º56’ N to 25º41’N latitude and 73º46’ E to 74º03’ E longitude. Physiographically, it is situated in Aravali basin. Geologically it comprises rocks of Aravali super groupformed in lower Proterozoic age. The northern, north-eastern and south- western parts of thetehsil are occupied by Jharol, Dovda and Nathdwara group respectively. Climatically this region
falls in sub-humid zone. The total population of the tehsil is 235140 persons (Census, 2011).
The population is mainly dependent on agriculture and mining activity. Rajsamand tehsil is oneof the largest marbles producing regions of the district. It contributes 62.08 percent of the total
marble production of the district (Rajasthan District Survey Report, 2018-19). The marble of thetehsil is entirely dolomite and is being mined mainly in Kelwa, Janijhar, Umti, Tali, Morwad, Arna,
Parvati etc. mines from Agaria, Kelwa Fort and Dholi Khan areas. These are mainly producing
white marble. The location of the study area is shown in Figure 1.
As per the record of Mines and Geology Department of Rajasthan total 314 marble mines
are operational in the tehsil. These marble mining and processing units provide employment toapproximately one-tenth (22713 persons) of the population in Rajsamand circle (District Census
Handbook of Rajsamand, 2011). Thus, marble mining constitutes the foundation of both the
district and the State economies. However, the impact of mining on the environment andassociated land use land cover changes cannot be overlooked.
Materials and Methods
For LULC mapping, multi-temporal satellite images (Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper Images (TM)from 1998, Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) from 2008, and Landsat 8
Operational Land Imager (OLI) from 2018) were obtained from the United States Geological
Survey (USGS) Earth Explorer website (http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/). All three datasets havea spatial resolution of 30 x 30 metres and use the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) Zone
43 N and WGS 84 datum. The selection of all three dry season images was made to best
distinguish the spectral signatures of the various land cover types, particularly scrub andagriculture. Table 1 contains detailed information about the data.
Supervised classification of the three images has been done using the maximum
likelihood classifier (MLC) algorithm. According to (Jonathan et al. 2006) “MLC is an ideal option
as it is a very simple and effective method that is also extremely well-known and has been
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successfully applied to a wide variety of remote sensing problems.” (Lillesand and Kiefer, 2000).
Training sets have been identified based on the spectral signature of the various classes inFalse Color Composites (FCC) of corresponding images. For the training sets, different LULC
classes' regions of interest (ROI) were created. These ROI were used to train the classifier andassign them to different classes. To ensure the accuracy of the classified images, Google Earth
Pro was used. It is the most important factor in determining the dependability of maps. Neither
any image classification is completed until the accuracy of the classification has been
determined (Kaul and Sopan 2012). On each of the three classified images, a sample of pixels
was generated and compared to the ground reference data. Overall classification accuracy has
been evaluated using the overall accuracy and kappa coefficient. Class wise accuracy has beenassessed using the User’s Accuracy (UA) and Producer’s Accuracy (PA).
Table 01: Spectral Characteristics of Bands used for Classification
Satellite

Acquisition Date

Band Used

Spatial Resolution

Landsat 5 TM

16 April, 1998

30 m

Landsat 7 ETM+

19 April, 2008

Landsat 8 OLI

23 April, 2018

Red, NIR, SWIR-1(B3,B4,B5)
Red, NIR, SWIR-1(B3,B4,B5)
Red, NIR, SWIR-1(B4,B5,B6)

30 m
30 m

(D)

Figure 01: Location Map of the Study Area

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Image Pre-Processing and Land Cover Classification Scheme
Landsat 7 ETM+ 2008 image was line corrected in ENVI version 5.5. Red, NIR and SWIR-1
bands of all three satellite images were stacked for classification Specifications of selectedbands of the three datasets used for classifications have been summarized in Table 1. Data
subsets of the study area were extracted from all three images using a vector boundary map ofRajsamand tehsil generated in ArcGIS version 10.3. The classification scheme has beendeveloped in accordance with the specific objectives of the present study and prior knowledgeof the study area. Six major LULC classes based on Level-1 of the classification schemeprescribed by the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) for Natural Resource Census(NRC) Land Use/Land Cover mapping on 1:50,000 scale (NRSC, 2014) has been chosen forclassification. They are (a) agricultural land which includes cultivated and non-cultivated land(b) water bodies which comprise lakes, rivers and streams. (c) built-up land (d) wasteland/barren
land which includes rocky and stony wasteland (e) marble mining which includes mines andprocessing units of marble, and (f) scrub comprising dense scrubland. After computation andanalysis of LULC classes, post-classification change detection was performed for analysing thechange in LULC classes over the last two decades. Change Matrix was generated for 1998 and2008, 2008 and 2018 and 1998 and 2018 maps.
RESULTS
Spatial distribution of selected LULC classes for the year of 1998, 2008 and 2018 as obtained
from the classification results has been shown in Figure 2, 3, 4 & 5. Table 2 summarizes thearea under different LULC categories in hectare and as percentage of total area of the tehsil.
LULC Status 1998
In 1998 the total marble mining area covered about 2874.78 hectare which comprising 4.80
percent of the total area. Table 2 shows that in year 1998 majority of the area was under
agriculture land which was about 27175.53 hectare, constituting 45.40 percent of the total area.
The area under scrub land was 18887.92 hectare comprising 31.56 percent of the total area.
Whereas area under wasteland was about 8868.18 hectare (14.82 percent of the study area).
Water and built-up land covered an area of 1412.42 hectare and 634.05 hectare respectively.
In 1998 impact of anthropogenic activities was less reflected in the LULC of the study area.
LULC Status 2008
In 2008 total area under agriculture land was 21886.99 hectare (36.57%) which shows
decrement in area. Contrarily scrubland and wasteland has increased to 19284.65 hectares and11490.54 hectare respectively. Marble mining area has also increased 4617.12 hectare, approx.
double as compared to year 1998. The statistics also shows that the built- up and water covered
about 1185.26 and 1388.32 hectare respectively. Table 2 provides a comparison of LULC
composition of 1998 and 2008 with increment in the marble mining, scrubland, wasteland andbuilt-up area, and decrement in area under agricultural land and water.
LULC Status 2018
In 2018, the area under agriculture land has further decreased to 21332.27 hectare (35.64% of
total area of the tehsil). Scrubland comprises about 18384.27 hectare which is 30.72 percent of
the area, slightly lower than 2008. On the other hand, water and built-up area cover about
1802.84 hectare (3.01%) and 2069.01 hectare (3.46%) respectively, which shows increment inboth the land cover types. Area under marble mining has been continuously increasing since1998. In 2018 marble mining area covers about 5985.37 hectare accounting 10% of the total
area of the tehsil. Wasteland covers about 10279 hectares, approx. 17 percent of the total area.

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Table 02: Area Under of LULC Classes in Rajsamand Tehsil (1998-2018)
LULC Classes
Water
Built-up
Agriculture
Marble Mining
Scrub
Wasteland/Barren
Total

LULC
1998
2008
hectare(%)
hectare1412.422.36
1388.32
634.051.06
1185.2627175.53
45.40
21886.99
2874.784.80
4617.1218887.92
31.56
19284.65
8868.18
14.82
11490.5459852.88
10059852.88

(%)
2.32
1.98
36.57
7.71
32.22
19.20
100

2018
hectare1802.842069.01
21332.27
5985.37
18384.27
10279.1259852.88

(%)
3.01
3.46
35.64
10.00
30.72
17.17
100

Figure 02: Distribution of LULC in Rajsamand tehsil (1998, 2008 and 2018)
Classification Accuracy Assessment
Accuracy analysis becomes a critical component in land use land cover change detection
analysis (Owojori and Xie, 2005). A stratified random sampling method has been employed togenerate 180 sample points with minimum 30 points in each class on all three images of 1998,
2008 and 2018. Overall accuracy achieved for all three classified maps is above 90 percent.
Overall Kappa statistics of 1998, 2008 and 2018 classification are 0.8803, 0.90 and 0.9068
respectively. Class-wise accuracy statistics for all 03 classified maps has been given in table 3.
Table 03: Results of Accuracy Assessment of LULC Classified Images of Year 1998,
2008 and 2018
Accuracy Assessment
Class Name

Water
Built-up
Agriculture
Marble Mining
Scrub
Wasteland/Barrn
Overall
Accuracy
Overall Kappa

1998
Producers
Accuracy
(%)

2008
User
Accuracy
(%)

2018
Kappa

1998
Producers
Accuracy
(%)

2008
User
Accuracy
(%)

2018
Kappa

1998
Producers
Accuracy
(%)

2008
User
Accuracy
(%)

2018
Kappa

96.67
100
90.32
90.00
81.08
92.31

96.67
80.00
93.33
90.00
100.0080.00

0.96
0.76920.91950.88
1.00
0.7662100.00100.0078.79
100.00
90.32
83.87

96.67
90.00
86.67
96.67
93.33
86.67

0.96030.88240.83670.96030.91950.8389

100
100
76.92
96.55
90
100

100.0090.00
100.00
93.33
90.00
80.00

1.00
0.88241.00
0.920588
0.769290.00%

91.67%

92.22%

0.88030.90

0.9068As evident from Table 3, the UA of all classes in 1998 LULC map is greater than 90
percent, except built-up and wasteland/ barren which is 80 percent. This is due to

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misclassification of built up as on agriculture class. In 2008 classified image, the UA has been
above 85 percent for all classes, and in 2018 it has been above 90 percent for all classes except
wasteland/barren. High conditional kappa statistics and UA values indicate high reliability ofclassification results for all the three years.
Land Use/Land Cover Change Detection
The following sections present the results of post classification change detection for the study
area from 1998 to 2018. Class to class change matrix has been generated for pairs of classified
maps (1998-2008 and 2008 -2018) using the ‘Matrix’ tool in ERDAS Imagine version 14. Table
4 and 5 present the results for change matrix for the period 1998 to 2008, and 2008 to 2018
respectively.
Year 1998 - 2008
Table 4 shows that from 1998 to 2008 major changes have been observed in agriculture landof which about 4677.48 hectare area has been converted to wasteland. Notably 1505.43 hectare
area of wasteland has changed to agricultural land. This change is mainly due to developed
irrigational facility along the bank of Banas river. 213.39 hectares of agricultural land haschanged to water class while 133.74 hectare area under water got converted to agriculture land.
The reason for this change may be variability of rainfall. When there is surplus rainfall waterlevel of the lake rises and spreads over agriculture land. When the rainfall is deficit the waterlevel goes down leaving behind more area under agriculture land. Around 184.41 hectare area
under marble mining got converted to wasteland while 910.56 hectare area of wastelandchanged to marble mining during this period. About 578.79 hectare mining area has increased
due to conversion of agricultural land. This is mostly observed between National Highway-8
and Gomti river. About 83.88 hectare area of water has changed into mining area. This marks
the sites of marble waste dumping in Gomti river. Considering built up area, about 491 hectare
area of agricultural land has been converted to the built-up area. This relates with urban sprawlof Rajsamand city and expansion of development activities in the tehsil. The conversion of
116.01 hectare area of built-up land to agriculture land may be result of classification errors.
Year 2008 – 2018
During 2008 to 2018 the area under agricultural land has reduced about 13.38 percent due toconversion of some agricultural to wasteland. This may be attributed to lack of irrigational facility
in north- eastern side of tehsil and proliferating mining activities in the study area. About 2.54
percent of agricultural land changed into mining class along NH-8 and near Kelwa town (Figure5). About 1.34 percent of agriculture land has changed to water, due to rising water level in
Rajsamand lake and its extension over surrounding land. Approx. 961.56 hectare and 865.62
hectare area of marble mining has increased due to conversion from scrub land and wastelandrespectively (Table 5). Change of marble mining area into water amounts to 65.9 hectare. Thisis due to formation of marble quarry lake in marble mining area (Box G in Figure 5). Approx.
25.83 hectare area of water has been converted into marble mining due to marble slurry
dumping in Gomti river. About 684.56 hectare land has been converted from scrub land to
agriculture land. On the other hand, 1937.48 hectare of scrub land has changed to wasteland
because of dumping of mining waste on scrub land. Due to spectral overlap between agricultural
fallow land and built-up area classification errors have shown change of built-up into agricultural
land.

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1998 (Area in Hectares)

Table 04: LULC Change Matrix (1998 To 2008)
LULC Class
Agriculture land
Built-up Area
Mining Area
Scrub land
Wasteland
Water Area
Total 2008

AgricultureLand
18035.8
116.01110.34
1985.671505.43133.7421886.99

2008 (Area in Hectares)
Built-up
Mining
Scrub
Area
Area
Land
491
578.793179.07419.49
40.59
35.91
22.5
2405.07134.37151.74598.2313869.8
97.83
910.562025.18
2.7
83.88
40.32
1185.264617.12 19284.65

Wasteland/ Barren
4677.48
18.36
184.412247.114322.1841
11490.54

Water
Area
213.39
3.69
18.09
35.37
7
1110.781388.32

Total
199827175.53
634.052874.78
18887.92
8868.181412.4259852.88

2008 (Area in Hectares)

Table 05: LULC Change Matrix (2008 To 2018)
LULC Class

AgricultureLand2018 (Area in Hectares)
Built-up
Mining
Scrub
Area
Area
Land

Wasteland/ Barren

Water
Area

Total 2008

Agriculture land

15043.1

715.41557.192346.72929.99294.5921886.99

Built-up Area

175.68841.86

59.67

55.09

48.71

4.25

1185.26

Mining Area

395.3498.82

3515.5258.56283

65.94617.12Scrub land

3031.26264.87961.5613027.62

1937.48

61.83

19284.65

Wasteland

2560.77134.91865.622676.365051.37201.5111490.54

Water Area

126.09

13.14

25.83

19.93

28.57

1174.761388.32

Total 2018

21332.27

2069.015985.37

18384.27

10279.12

1802.8459852.88

Discussion
Careful study of the spatial distribution of LULC maps of Rajsamand Tehsil using multi-temporal
datasets reveal remarkable change in LULC composition of the tehsil during the period of 20
years from 1998 to 2018. There has been a significant decrement in agricultural land by
approximately 10 percent over the years, reducing to 35.64 percent in 2018 (Figure 5). Most of
this reduction has occurred in eastern, north- eastern and around the Kelwa town which isapparently related to rapidly growing marble mining and processing activities in the study area.
Between 2008 and 2018 marble processing units have grown continuously along NH- 8 along
which agriculture land has decreased rapidly. On the other hand, in the eastern part of the tehsil
agriculture land has decreased because of increased wasteland. These changes are associatedwith the change in social economic activity in the study area. In southern part of the tehsil
substantial irrigation from Banas river and accessible plain area contribute to expansion inagricultural land. Therefore, most of the agricultural land underlies in the vicinity of the river
because of which no noticeable change has been found in agricultural land in this area.
Figure 4 depicts an increase in scrub and wasteland cover in 2008. These classes
together comprise about half of the total area in 2008 and 2018. The increase wasteland has
been quite significant being approximately 05 percent. Wasteland has been expanding since1998 in centre, north-eastern and eastern part of the tehsil. Major changes have been foundbetween NH-8 and Gomti river where marble processing has grown actively and continuously,
resulting into consistent change of agricultural land into wasteland. In north-eastern and easternpart, the increase may be related to increasing mining activity, anthropogenic activity and lackof irrigation facility thus conversion of agriculture land into wasteland. The area under marble
mining has steadily and significantly increased over the years, more than doubling in 2018
compared to 1998, but still accounts for approximately one tenth of the total area of the tehsil,
as illustrated in Figure 3 and 5. The major marble mining site lies very close to Rajsamand cityand Kelwa town within a distance of 02 to 06 kilometre in the north-west. This increase isbecause of spacious reserves of raw material, accessible cheap labour availability and hightransport connectivity by NH-08, which connects two major districts of Udaipur and Ajmer. Thus,

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the Rajsamand marble mining industry has been flourishing at a fast rate. In 1998 most of themarble mining sites were concentrated in western part of the tehsil i.e., Dhani, Nijharna, Kelwa,
Talai, Jhanjhar and Kishanpura village contributed major part of marble production of the tehsil.
But in 2008 and 2018 the major expansion of marble mining has been towards northern, northeastern and central part of the study area. New mining sites have developed including Miyari,
Piplantri, Guleta, Atma, Podawali, Morwar, Pasoond and Parwat Kheri. From 1998 to 2018marble processing units have continuously expanded from Rajsamand city to Kelwa town along
NH-8.
Built-up area has spread throughout the tehsil in rural areas. Higher concentration occurs innorthern, central and north-western side of the tehsil. Since 1998 there has been a threefold
increase in built up area (1.06 percent in 1998 to 3.46 percent in 2018) although it still covers
less than 5 percent of the total area. This increase can be associated with mining industry andother socio-economic factors. Existing built-up areas are expanding to a greater extent including
new built-up areas near by mining sites and around NH-8 where marble processing units areflourishing. Area under water has also increased slightly less than three percent from 1998 to2018. Major sources of water in the tehsil are Rajsamand Lake, Gomti, Thali and Banas rivers.
Banas river flows in southern side of the tehsil which is major source of irrigation in the study
area. Gomti river flows in northern part of the tehsil. Rajsamand lake is situated on Gomti riverand is one of the major sources of drinking water for Rajsamand city as well as for the tehsil. In
addition to this, some water bodies have also been detected around the marble quarries andwestern side of the Kelwa town. These marble quarry lakes are the result of marble excavations
wherein water accumulates from rainfall and waste water generated from marble mining [Figure
5 Box (G)].

Figure 03: LULC composition of Rajsamand tehsil in 1998. Boxes A to F show important
physical and cultural features of the tehsil – (A) Kelwa town (B) NH-08 (C) Gomti river (D) Banas
river (E) Rajsamand city (F) Rajsamand lake.

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Figure 04: LULC composition of Rajsamand Tehsil in 2008

Figure 05: LULC composition of Rajsamand tehsil in 2018. Box (G) show Quarry Lake
Overall Gain and Loss for the Period of 1998 to 2018
Table 6 shows overall LULC change from 1998 to 2018. Changing complexion of LULC clearlyreflects emerging economic activities in the region. Agriculture land is the predominant land
cover in the study area and has also recorded greatest reduction extent in last two decades
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nearly about 5843.26 hectare (-21%) from 1998 to 2018. Despite of decreased area agriculture
land has largest extent among all LULC classes in 2018. Largest expansion has occurred inbuilt up area with a net increase of 226.32 percent (1434.96 hectare) indicating urban sprawl ofRajsamand city and emerging marble sector in the region. With an increase of about 108 percent(3110.59 hectare) marble mining area has undergone second highest increase. Increased
wasteland by 15.91 percent (1410.94 hectare) over last two decades indicates that landdegradation is to be taken into account along with economic development. Scrub land has
decreased -2.67 percent (-503.65 hectare) getting converted to wasteland and marble mining
area.
Table 06: Overall Changes in LULC classes in each Period in Hectare
LULC Class
Agriculture land
Built-up Area
Mining Area
Scrub land
Wasteland
Water Area

Net change in
1998-2008-5288.54
551.211742.34
396.732622.36-24.1

Net change in2008-2018-554.72
883.751368.25-900.38-1211.42
414.52Overall changes in
1998-2018-5843.26
1434.963110.59-503.65
1410.94390.42Net Growth rate in(%)-21.50226.32108.20
-2.67
15.91
27.64

Conclusion
Mapping, monitoring and analysis of land use land cover change in Rajsamand tehsil is very
essential for land management and sustainable development in a fast-emerging industrial area.
LULC change caused by growth of marble industry in study area has been effectively mappedusing three Landsat image of 1998, 2008 and 2018. The results establish the potential of remotesensing techniques in detecting land cover change. Since 1998, the dominant LULC class was
agricultural land and scrub land but over the time there has been a significant loss of agriculturalland. There has been continuous increase in marble mining over the two decades to cater the
rapidly growing demand for marble. The marble mining has adversely affected the other LULC
classes due to discharging of marble waste on agriculture land and other type of land. It has
also affected soil productivity and caused deterioration in air and water quality. Marble industry
is playing significant role in economic development of the tehsil and providing employment
opportunities to the population. The findings raise concerns of decreased agriculture land inmining area and its influence on food security. The evaluation and conclusion of the study havea major policy implication in Rajsamand tehsil on sustainable land use practises.
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