Land-use/Land-cover study using Remote Sensing and GIS in an Arid Environment

Abstract

As the time plays great role in leading the life processes and its surroundings, the paper presented here entails about the Landuse/Landcover in Kutch Region of State Gujarat India in between year 1999 and 2009. Kutch is having arid and semiarid area with an attached coastal part. Kutch is very useful for study because of its diversity and varied climate. Remote sensing and GIS have been used here to describe different features of the study area. The data are procured from the two different satellite sensors that are Landsat TM+ and IRS-P6 LISS III during the post monsoon period to depict the changes that happened in last 10 years. As change detection analysis is a major part of this study, it shows that some areas are increasing more than other classes due to anthropogenic pressure on the other classes, leading to changes of agriculture and other vegetation to grassland and wasteland. Major changes are seen from 1999-2009 for the wasteland, barren land, grassland and forest. Wasteland and grassland are showing positive change while barren land is decreased in very major amount. Over 81-88 % kappa accuracy are achieved for both the years under consideration, indicating a satisfactory classification for both the years.