IRS-1A APPLICATION FOR LAND-USE LAND COVER MAPPING IN INDIA

Land use/land cover inventories are needed for the optimal utilisation and management of land resources of the country. Remote sensing application with IRS-1A LISS-I data helped generation of districtwise land use/land cover maps for the whole country on 1:250,000 scale to serve the requirement of agroclimatic zonal planning, initiated under the Planning Commission of the Government of India. Both the visual interpretation and the digital classification techniques were employed in mapping land use/land cover categories. Outlining categoric abstraction scheme and the system of classification, the methodologies for mapping and aggregating agricultural land uses of the Kharif and Rabi seasons into a holistic format are briefly presented in the paper. Completion of land use/land cover maps of 442 districts in record time of one effective year established the operational utility of IRS-1A data in land use/land cover mapping in an efficient and cost-effective manner.