Dual attention guided deep encoder-decoder network for change analysis in land use/land cover for Dakshina Kannada District, Karnataka, India

The Earth is frequently changed by natural occurrences and human actions that have threatened our environment to a certain extent. Therefore, accurate and timely monitoring of transformations at the surface of the Earth is crucial for precisely facing their harmful effects and consequences. This paper aims to perform a change detection (CD) analysis and assessment of the Dakshina Kannada region, being one of the coastal districts of Karnataka, India. The spatial and temporal variations in land use and land cover (LULC) are being monitored and examined from the data received as LULC maps from the National Remote Sensing Agency, Indian Space Research Organization, India. The time-series data from advanced wide-field sensor (AWiFS) Resourcesat2 satellite as LULC maps (1:250k) are analyzed using a deep learning approach with an encoder–decoder architecture with dual-attention modules for the change analysis. The model provides an overall accuracy and meanIOU(intersection over union) of 94.11% and 74.1%. The LULC maps from 2005 to 2018 (13 years) are utilized to decide the variations in the LULC, including urban development, agricultural variations, vegetation dynamics, forest areas, barren land, littoral swamp, and water bodies, current fallow, etc. The multiclass area-wise changes in terms of percentage show a decline in most LULC classes, which raises a point of concern for the environmental safety of the considered area, which is highly exposed to coastal flooding due to increased urbanization.