Land use and land cover change and rainfall variability in Baglung Municipality, Baglung, Nepal: Implications for water resource management

Abstract

Land use and land cover (LULC) change is considered a major indicator of environmental transformation influenced by natural processes and human activities. This study aims to analyze land use and land cover change in Baglung Municipality, Gandaki Province, Nepal, for the years 2016 and 2026 using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and supervised classification techniques in a GIS employing the Maximum Likelihood Classification method. Five major land use classes were identified in the study area: agricultural land, forest and vegetation, settlement and built-up area, barren land, and water bodies. Spatial analysis was conducted to evaluate the distribution and temporal changes of these land cover categories. Additionally, rainfall trend analysis was conducted using long-term DHM meteorological records (1995-2025), applying the Mann-Kendall test and Sen's slope estimation in R software. The result showed notable LULC changes during the study period. Agricultural land decreased from 42.92 km² in 2016 to 25.16 km² in 2026, while forest and vegetation increased from 47.67 km² to 63.30 km². Settlement and built-up areas increased from 2.22 km² to 8.95 km², whereas barren land decreased from 4.84 km² to 0.57 km². Water bodies showed a slight decline from 1.37 km² to 1.03 km². The classification achieved overall accuracies of 87.74% and 85.20% for 2016 and 2026, respectively. Rainfall exhibited weak decreasing trend (Sen's slope= -2.24 mm/yr), and the trend was statistically insignificant (p= 0.859). The finding demonstrate substantial landscape transformation, particularly agricultural land loss and expansion of settlement and built-up areas. The observed decline in water bodies cannot be directly attributed to long-term rainfall trends based on the available data. The study provides baseline information for land use planning, watershed conservation, and sustainable water resource management in Baglung Municipality.