Spatial Approach in Analyzing Climate Change Impact on Saline Soil of Khambhat Region

Soil salinization is a prevalent land degradation process, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions where the amount of precipitationPrecipitation is less than the amount of evaporation. In such climatic conditions, soluble salts accumulate in the soil, which alters soil properties and eventually diminishes the productivity of agricultural fields. Hence, it is important to quantify the spatial distribution of salinity, understand its trend in space and time, and ascertain the impact of driving forces on these lands. The present study has focused on a spatial analysis of salinity using multitemporal remote sensing in Khambhat taluka, Gujarat, India. This area is facing a tragic problem of salinity due to seawater ingress as well as improper land and water management practices. The spatial maps were generated from Landsat images for 1987 and 2022. The Maximum likelihood classifier in ArcGISArcGIS software brought out four different classes of saline areas: very slightly saline, slightly saline, moderate saline, and severe saline. The maps were generated with an accuracy of 76.44% and 78.76% and the Kappa Coefficient of 0.72 and 0.75 for 1987 and 2022, respectively. The results have distinctly shown an increase of 45.019 km2 of saline area over the past three and a half decades. The impact assessment analysis focusing the climate variables on salinity has shown the significance of both temperature and precipitationPrecipitation in preventing the spread of the saline area. While a marginal increase was observed in the slightly saline, moderately saline, and severely saline areas, a simultaneous decrease of 14.39% was noted in the very slightly saline class. Monitoring of vital parametersParameters like soil salinity, which is a major threatThreats to the degradation of fertile soil, holds far-reaching implications. Such studies can be beneficial and extended to other areas for their proper land management practices.