Land use and land cover change detection through remote sensing approach: A case study in the parts of Pudukkottai District, Tamil nadu

Land use and land cover is an important component in understanding the interactions of the human activities with the environment and thus it is necessary to be able to simulate changes. Empirical observation revealed a change in land use land cover classification in the parts of Pudukkottai District Tamil Nadu state. In this paper an attempt is made to study the changes in land use and land cover in the study area 10 years period (2003-2013). The land use/land cover prepared LANDSAT ETM+ satellite imageries data (Path153, Row053, acquired on 30 meter resolution image). The image characteristics like size, shape, shadow, tone/colors, texture, pattern and various associated features were considered for interpretation and to achieve it initial identification of different land use classes was pointed out on the image before carrying out the image classification and Geo-referencing of the image was also carried out. The satellite digital data was rectified using Survey of India (SOI) to posheets and field visits in the parts of Pudukkottai District accessibility is the main reason to exploitation of land resources. The land use was classified into nine classes. The two different year land use/land cover maps were integrated in GIS environment. In 2003, dense trees cover, agriculture and water bodies dominated the entire study area, covering a total of 1103.4 Km2 (74.85%). The fourth largest land cover corresponds to Land without Scrub, which occupied 8.8% of the landscape followed by current fallow land (5.8%), sandy area (4.2%), Land with Scrub (3.4%), Barren land (1.5%) and built up land (1.4%).