Reconstruction of contested landscape: Detecting land cover transformation hosting cultural heritage sites from Central India using remote sensing

• First time detection of landscape change affecting cultural heritage in Indian context.
• Discovery of numerous new rock art sites during the field-work in the affected area.
• First time use of SVM and MLC combined in rock art research.
• Archaeological locational modelling confirms field data.
• Preliminary steps towards policy development for cultural resource management.

Central India hosts one of the largest repositories of archaeological sites in the world having a semi-arid climate and distinct eco-geography which is prone to rapid change due to human activities. This paper discusses the changes in land use and land cover for the past twenty-three years in the region altering the rich cultural heritage, revealing by the presence of numerous painted rock-shelter sites in the region. The land cover and land use changes in terms of deforestation, urban growth and development and sandstone mining have been evaluated in the present study. Some of the above-mentioned parameters have been quantified using remote sensing and GIS data by peeping into the past and the present demonstrating sufficient practical and scientific value for the present work. The use of landsat satellite data of appropriate spectral and spatial resolution are imperative in this research where two supervised classificatory schemes viz. MLC (maximum likelihood classification) and SVM (support vector machine) are implemented for image classification. Landsat images of the years 1989, 2000 and 2011 have been processed to detect the current and historical changes of cultural heritage sites in its structural and spectral aspects in one of the remote regions of central India that matched the ground truthing from the present day survey and field work. The techniques provided differential results and in terms of accuracy SVM performed better than MLC while detecting natural and archaeological change estimation of the contested landscape of rock art. The change analysis suggests the gradual and steady destruction of natural and cultural wealth of this area leading to complete fragility. The deforestation led to the exposure of painted sandstone rock-shelters with in situ archaeological deposits. In the recent past intensive sandstone mining till the present years is obliterating unique cultural heritage sites in this region of Central India. Finally, a set of guidelines has been recommended to employ good policies to align heritage conservation and development on the right track to promote sustainable land use cost-effectively.