Assessment of fly ash contamination due to thermal power stations in Nagpur district, Maharashtra, using decadal landsat-8 images and machine learning technique

Fly ash pollutants, which are created in various power plants and industries as a result of the mineral matters in coal, being transformed during combustion, are among the most harmful pollutants today. It is usually disposed of in ponds or artificial pits. It combines with rainfall during the monsoon season and spreads to nearby areas. Consequently, it has a negative effect on the ecosystem. Monitoring soil contamination using physiochemical processes is a time-consuming and arduous procedure that can be reduced by analyzing satellite data, which takes less time and produces a systematic result rapidly. The accuracy of land use and land cover categorization depends on imagery appropriateness and suitable classifier selection. Hence, this study attempts to examine the land use and land cover changes due to fly ash pollutants in Nagpur district, Maharashtra, India, using temporal Landsat-8 satellite images over the period of 2013–2023 by using Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier. SVM reported an average value of overall accuracy equal to 87.64% and a kappa coefficient equal to 0.83. From the results obtained, it was seen that fly ash disposed area increased from 23.4 hectares in 2013 to 134.1 hectares in 2023. If proper care is not taken, the increase in fly ash in the area ultimately leaches into the tributary of the Kanhan River, which passes nearby, and makes the water undrinkable. In addition to leaching, fly ash toxins can travel through the environment due to erosion, runoff, or through the air as fine dust.