Vulnerability and landscape assessment in Indigirka River basin, Eastern Siberia, Russia

Abstract

Monitoring of land use/cover change is very important for sustainable development and planning. This research work is to understand natural and environmental vulnerability situation and its cause such as intensity, distribution and socio-economic effect in the Indigirka River basin, Eastern Siberia, Russia based on remote sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS) techniques. A model was developed by following thematic layers: land use/cover, vegetation, wetland, geology, geomorphology and soil in ArcGIS 10.2 software using multi-spectral satellite data obtained from Landsat 7 and 8 for the years of 2000, 2008 and 2015 respectively. This study is helpful for decision making for eco-environmental recovering and rebuilding as well as predicting the future development.