N2 - Land use land cover change (LULC) has become part of the global science agenda and the understanding of LULC change is vital for planning sustainable management of natural resources. The study has employed multi- temporal satellite imagery to examine the LULC change in the Abbottabad District from 1989 to 2019. Images from Landsat-5, Landsat-7, and Landsat-8 Thematic Mapper (TM) for the same season were acquired from the USGS for the years of 1989, 1999, 2009 and 2019. The images were pre-processed by atmospheric correction, extraction of the study area and band composite. The supervised image classification using Maximum Likelihood Classifier and accuracy assessment were applied to prepare LULC maps of the Abbottabad District. In the last three decades, the study area witnessed number of changes in the pattern of LULC due to population growth, rapid urbanization and increased development of infrastructure, which cumulatively led to the emergence of new patterns being employed for land use. Results of the analysis involving the classified maps show that agricultural land and bare land have decreased, respectively 15.73% and 3.81%, whereas water resources have decreased significantly by 0.58%. This study reveals that GIS can be used as an informative tool to detect LULC changes. However, for planning and management, as well as to gain better insight into the human dynamics of environmental variations on the regional scale, it is crucial to have information about temporal LULC transformation patterns in the study area. L1 - http://journals.pan.pl/Content/120469/PDF-MASTER/2021-03-JLWD-05-Anwar.pdf L2 - http://journals.pan.pl/Content/120469 PY - 2021 IS - No 50 DO - 10.24425/jwld.2021.138159 KW - decadal transformation KW - land use land cover change (LULC) KW - Lower Himalayan region of Pakistan KW - multi-temporal satellite imagery A1 - Anwar, Zartashia A1 - Alam, Arif A1 - Elahi, Noor PB - Polish Academy of Sciences; Institute of Technology and Life Sciences - National Research Institute DA - 2021.08.17 T1 - Analyzing the decadal transformation of the LULC from tillage to a townified area in the Lower Himalayan Region, Pakistan UR - http://journals.pan.pl/dlibra/publication/edition/120469 T2 - Journal of Water and Land Development