Decades of Transformation

Coal has played a vital role in the livelihood of the people of Dhanbad. Dhanbad, the Coal Capital of India is one of the largest, with 19.4 billion tons of reserves, producing 27.5 million tons annually. This study presents a comprehensive analysis of Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) in Dhanbad, India, spanning from 1987 to 2023. Leveraging multi-temporal satellite imagery from Landsat missions and advanced machine learning techniques, the research identifies significant transformations in Dhanbad's landscape. A supervised classification using the smileGradientTreeBoost algorithm categorizes land into coal, water, urban, crop, and forest areas. The classified data, organized into annual percentages, highlights the environmental impacts of coal mining and urban expansion. To forecast future trends, Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Bidirectional LSTM (Bi-LSTM) models are employed, projecting land use changes for the next five years. The analysis reveals long-term patterns of urbanization and resource exploitation, providing actionable insights for policymakers, urban planners, and environmental scientists. By combining historical LULC data with predictive modelling, the study aims to support sustainable development and environmental conservation strategies in this industrial region. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of integrating geospatial technologies and deep learning for regional land management and highlight the need for proactive measures to mitigate ecological degradation.