The research was carried out to measure the shifting of the river and estimate-related effects on land use and land cover (LULC) using Geospatial approaches for the Singimari River between 1978 and 2021. The river Singimari is dynamic because of ongoing sedimentation, which alters the velocity and direction of the river’s flow and causes bank line movement due to ongoing bank erosion. The research has been based on quantifying channel shifting from 1978 to 2021 using 15 cross-sections. Maximum likelihood supervised classification was utilised to identify different LULC classes with greater accuracy. Between 1991 and 2001, the river migrated 1564 metres to the left at cross-section ‘L’. Between 1991 and 2001, 6.72 and 6.92 Km2 of erosion and accretion, respectively, took place. Between 1978 and 2021, positive change was prevalent for the classes of vegetation cover, fallow land and built-up area, while agricultural land and water bodies decreased as the river continuously deposited sediments in the form of various bars. Out of 188 villages of Dinhata-I and Sitai blocks of Cooch Behar district, 51 villages are exposed to channel shifting. The findings indicated that the dynamicity of the Singimari River and concomitant changes in the land use pattern brings new obstacles in front of the rural population of the study area.