Land use and land cover (LULC) change has been recognized as a key driver of global climate change by influencing land surface processes. Being in constant change, river basins are always subjected to LULC changes, especially decline in forest cover to give way for agricultural expansion, urbanization, industrialization etc. We used on-screen digital interpretation technique to derive LULC maps from Landsat images at three decadal intervals i.e., 1985, 1995 and 2005 of two major river basins of India. Rain-fed, Mahanadi river basin (MRB) attributed to 55% agricultural area wherein glacier-fed, Brahmaputra river basin (BRB) had only 16% area under agricultural land. Though conversion of forest land for agricultural activities was the major LULC changes in both the basins, the rate was higher for BRB than MRB. While water body increased in MRB could be primarily attributed to creation of reservoirs and aquaculture farms; snow and ice melting attributed to creation of more water bodies in BRB. Scrub land acted as an intermediate class for forest conversion to barren land in BRB, while direct conversion of scrub land to waste land and crop land was seen in MRB. While habitation contributed primarily to LULC changes in BRB, the proximity zones around habitat and other socio-economic drivers contributed to LULC change in MRB. Comparing the predicted result with actual LULC of 2005, we obtained >97% modelling accuracy; therefore it is expected that the Dyna-CLUE model has very well predicted the LULC for the year 2025. The predicted LULC of 2025 and corresponding LULC changes in these two basins acting as early warning, and with the past 2-decadal change analysis this study is believed to help the land use planners for improved regional planning to create balanced ecosystem, especially in a changing climate.

土地利用和土地覆被（LULC）的变化通过影响地表过程而被公认为是全球气候变化的主要驱动力。流域一直处于不断变化的状态，总是受到LULC变化的影响，尤其是森林覆盖率的下降，以让路给农业扩张，城市化，工业化等。我们使用屏幕数字解释技术，从Landsat图像中以三个十年的间隔得出LULC地图。IE，印度的两个主要流域的1985、1995和2005年。雨养的马哈纳迪河流域（MRB）占55％的农业面积，而冰川喂养的布拉马普特拉河盆地（BRB）仅占农业土地面积的16％。尽管两个流域的土地利用，土地利用和林业变化主要是将林地转作农业活动，但BRB的比率高于MRB。虽然MRB中水体的增加可能主要归因于水库和水产养殖场的建立；冰雪融化归因于BRB中更多水体的产生。在BRB中，灌木丛土地是森林转化为贫瘠土地的中间类别，而在MRB中则将灌木丛土地直接转化为荒地和耕地。虽然居住环境主要是导致BRB中LULC的变化，栖息地周围的邻近区域和其他社会经济驱动因素推动了MRB中LULC的变化。将预测结果与2005年的实际LULC进行比较，我们获得了> 97％的建模精度；因此，可以预期的是Dyna-CLUE模型可以很好地预测2025年的LULC。预测的2025年的LULC以及这两个盆地中相应的LULC的变化可作为预警，并结合过去的两次年代际变化分析进行此项研究据信，这有助于土地利用规划人员改善区域规划，以创造平衡的生态系统，尤其是在气候变化的情况下。