Does geodiversity correlate with land use/land cover diversity? A case study of Birbhum district, West Bengal, India

• Published in: Proceedings of the Geologists' Association 2022-12, Vol.133 (6), p.589-602
• Main Author: Datta, Krishanu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Geodiversity; Geodiversity index; Land use/land cover diversity index; Spatial correlation
• ISSN: 0016-7878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.pgeola.2022.07.004

The spatial knowledge of the relationships between geodiversity and land use/land cover diversity may become crucial to forming modern land use policies and consequently, it may also become fruitful in regional development. But, there is no work in the literature that emphasises the relationships between geodiversity and land use/land cover diversity, especially in a country like India which has a large variety of abiotic elements and also has a large variety of land use/land cover patterns in its territory and hence, has tremendous scope for such kind of work. Therefore, in the present work to partially fill the research gap, an attempt has been made to explore the relationships between geodiversity and land use/land cover diversity of the Birbhum district, India following the principles of richness index. The spatial correlations between geodiversity and land use/land cover diversity have been examined statistically by applying both correlation and regression analyses. The result shows a linear positive correlation between geodiversity and land use/land cover diversity of the concerned district that implies the fact that the areas of high geodiversity are also associated with the areas of high land use/land cover diversity and vice versa. [Display omitted] •A novel approach to explore the spatial correlation between geodiversity and land use/land cover diversity is proposed.•A new method to calculate the hydrological sub-index is proposed.•Geodiversity is positively correlated with land use/land cover diversity.•The geological and the hydrological heterogeneity are the best determinants of land use/land cover diversity.