Analysis of Land Cover Changing and Vegetation Index at Kuranji Watershed in Padang, West Sumatera, Indonesia

Various activities around Kuranji watershed included the land conversioncan be impacted to topographic condition and also contributed to altering the vegetation density. Remote sensing technology is an effective methodfor land cover mapping. The objectives of the present study were to analyze the changing of land cover and classifying the vegetation density index in the upstream Kuranji Watershed. This study was conducted at Kuranji Watershed in Padang, West Sumatera Province. Two Landsat images representing the changing of the watershed area during 2017 and 2018 as well as obtaining the classification of vegetation density during corresponding years.Landsat 8 OLI images were classified using a supervised classification technique, then computed the vegetation index using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The result showed that the extension of forest area, settlement area and paddy field (283.92; 35.06; and 27 Ha, respectively) and decline of mix dryland agriculture, shrub and garden area (93.68; 277.43; and 190.95 Ha respectively). Decreasing of dense vegetation found at lower dense class (6.47 Ha) and highest dense class (5535.35 Ha). Therefore, the increasing area found at the cloud, dense and higher dense class (93.17; 5525.1; and 109.94 Ha, respectively). So, it is highlighted that changing land cover and vegetation index happen during the only one-year period