Mapping food extend and its impact on land use/land cover and settlements variations: a case study of Layyah District, Punjab, Pakistan

Floods are the most frequent and most distractive natural disaster around the globe. Pakistan is facing frequent flooding since 1929 and foods in the Indus river basin cost more than 7000 lives and caused mighty changes in land use and land covers (LULC) since 1947. District Layyah hit by food on August 1, 2010. Landsat ETM+ with 30 m spatial resolution was utilized to investigate the LULC changes in district Layyah for the 2010 food. It was revealed water area increased 8.05% from July 3 (379.13 km2 ) to August 20 (656.02 km2 ) in district Layyah. Vegetation cover increased from 1149.62 km2 on July 3 to 1842.23 km2 on August 20 in district Layyah and showed a 20.13% increment. Barren/built-up area showed a decrement of 28.18% from 1911.72 km2 in pre-food analysis to 941.90 km2 in the post-food analysis. Total 15 union councils (UC) of district Layyah were affected by food from which 10 lies in tehsil Layyah and 5 belongs to tehsil Karor Lal Esan. Flood affects 177 settlements in district Layyah from which 156 belong to tehsil Layyah and 21 were from tehsil Karor Lal Esan. These results suggest that the impacts of the food on LULC need more attention to cope with the challenge of frequent flooding and impacts in Pakistan.