Land use and Land cover changes have been among the most important perceptible changes taking place around us and this change is the outcome of natural and socio-economic factors. Increased demand, or pressure on land resources, shows up a declining crop production, degradation of land quality and quantity, and competition for land. This study analyses changes in landuse/ cover in the Pohru watershed of Kashmir Valley. It has an area of about 1,83,474 hectares and is characterized by stupendous growth in population in the last few decades. The multi-temporal land use/ land cover mapping and change detection analysis was carried out using Land sat TM (1992), IRS ID LISS III (2002) and IRS P6 LISS III (2012) with adequate ground validation. The results revealed that during the last two decades, a major change has occurred in Dense forest class with decrease of 3.79 percent. Horticulture have registered a positive growth of 3.05 percent. Within two decades from 1992- 2012, a decrease of 1.52 percent change has occurred in the agriculture category.

Keywords: Land cover changes, Remote Sensing, Pohru Watershed.