Use of Very High Spatial Resolution Remotely Sensed Imagery for Assessing Land‐Cover Changes in Shrub Habitat Preserves of Southern California

Abstract

The goal of this research was to explore the utility of very high spatial resolution, digital remotely sensed imagery for monitoring land‐cover changes in habitat preserves within southern California coastal shrublands. Changes were assessed for Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve, a large open space in San Diego County, over the 1996 to 1999 period for which imagery was available.

Multispectral, digital camera imagery from two summer dates, three years apart, was acquired using the Airborne Data Acquisition and Registration (ADAR) digital‐camera system. These very high resolution (VHR) image data (1m), composed of three visible and one near‐infrared wavebands (V/NIR), were the primary image input for assessing land cover change. Image‐derived datasets generated from georeferenced and registered ADAR imagery included multitemporal overlays and multitemporal band differencing with threshold selection. Two different multitemporal image classifications were generated from these datasets and compared. Single‐date imagery was analyzed interactively with image‐derived datasets and with information from field observations in an effort to discern change types. A ground sampling survey conducted soon after the 1999 image acquisition provided concurrent ground reference data.

Most changes occurring within the three‐year interval were associated with transitional phenological states and differential precipitation effects on herbaceous cover. Variations in air temperatures and timing of rainfall contributed to differences that the seven‐week image acquisition offset may have caused. Disturbance factors of mechanical clearing, erosion, potentially invasive plants, and fire were evident and their influence on the presence, absence, and type of vegetation cover were likely sources of change signals.

The multitemporal VHR, V/NIR image data enabled relatively fine‐scale land cover changes to be detected and identified. Band differencing followed by multitemporal classification provided an effective means for detecting vegetation increase or decrease. Detailed information on short‐term disturbance effects and long‐term vegetation type conversions can be extracted if image acquisitions are carefully planned and geometric and radiometric processing steps are implemented.     

Jerdon’s courser habitat analysis using Remote sensing

Jerdon’s courser (Cursorius bitorquatus) considered as lost bird is found in Sri Lankamalleswaram Sanctuary, Cuddapah District, Andhra Pradesh. It is listed in Red data book as endangered bird. Analysis of satellite imagery of 1989, 1996, 1998 and ground information have revealed an improvement of Jerdon courser’s habitat after declaration of area as sanctuary in 1988. Large open grounds show a decrease, white small open grounds surrounded by scrub plants offering protection and food cover increase. Analysis of satellite imagery shows core niche covering 4 x 3 km area and larger area of sanctuary (7.3 x 13.1 km) having various land cover classes. Comparison of satellite imagery from 1989 to 1998 shows degradation of larger area of sanctuary where birds are not seen.     

Coastal and marine ecological changes and fish cage culture development in Phu Quoc,Vietnam (2001 to 2011)

This study employed image enhancement for LANDSAT TM and ALOS imagery to monitor the changing status of coastal resources from 2001 to 2011, object-based classification of high-resolution THEOS imagery to extract fish cage culture sites and interpolation methods to determine marine environmental quality in 2011 in the northern part of Phu Quoc Island. There were five classes in the study site: natural forest, Melaleuca forest, agriculture, peat and built-up areas. Agricultural land and Melaleuca forest changing into built-up areas constituted approximately 51.13% of the total area changing. The benthic seagrass habitat increased dramatically from 2001 to the end of 2010. Besides, marine culture has been concerned to cage culture which is one of the sources directly affecting aquatic life and water quality in coastal environment. Cage culture locations were detected using high-resolution imagery as THEOS data for image fusion and Object-based Image Analysis methods. Water quality criteria including nitrogen, phosphorus and chlorophyll-a concentrations were determined by interpolation method, and the spatial distribution of these parameters showed a concentration in the study area in the range from 0.17 to 0.49?mg/L, 0.012 to 0.073?mg/L and 0.26 to 1.046?μg/L, respectively.     

Synergy of airborne LiDAR and Worldview-2 satellite imagery for land cover and habitat mapping: A BIO_SOS-EODHaM case study for the Netherlands

A major challenge is to develop a biodiversity observation system that is cost effective and applicable in any geographic region. Measuring and reliable reporting of trends and changes in biodiversity requires amongst others detailed and accurate land cover and habitat maps in a standard and comparable way. The objective of this paper is to assess the EODHaM (EO Data for Habitat Mapping) classification results for a Dutch case study. The EODHaM system was developed within the BIO_SOS (The BIOdiversity multi-SOurce monitoring System: from Space TO Species) project and contains the decision rules for each land cover and habitat class based on spectral and height information. One of the main findings is that canopy height models, as derived from LiDAR, in combination with very high resolution satellite imagery provides a powerful input for the EODHaM system for the purpose of generic land cover and habitat mapping for any location across the globe. The assessment of the EODHaM classification results based on field data showed an overall accuracy of 74% for the land cover classes as described according to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) taxonomy at level 3, while the overall accuracy was lower (69.0%) for the habitat map based on the General Habitat Category (GHC) system for habitat surveillance and monitoring. A GHC habitat class is determined for each mapping unit on the basis of the composition of the individual life forms and height measurements. The classification showed very good results for forest phanerophytes (FPH) when individual life forms were analyzed in terms of their percentage coverage estimates per mapping unit from the LCCS classification and validated with field surveys. Analysis for shrubby chamaephytes (SCH) showed less accurate results, but might also be due to less accurate field estimates of percentage coverage. Overall, the EODHaM classification results encouraged us to derive the heights of all vegetated objects in the Netherlands from LiDAR data, in preparation for new habitat classifications.     

Assessing the potential of integrated Landsat 8 thermal bands,with the traditional reflective bands and derived vegetation indices in classifying urban landscapes

Reliable and up-to-date urban land cover information is valuable in urban planning and policy development. Due to the increasing demand for reliable land cover information there has been a growing need for robust methods and datasets to improve the classification accuracy from remotely sensed imagery. This study sought to assess the potential of the newly launched Landsat 8 sensor’s thermal bands and derived vegetation indices in improving land cover classification in a complex urban landscape using the support vector machine classifier. This study compared the individual and combined performance of Landsat 8’s reflective, thermal bands and vegetation indices in classifying urban land use-land cover. The integration of Landsat 8 reflective bands, derived vegetation indices and thermal bands overall produced significantly higher accuracy classification results than using traditional bands as standalone (i.e. overall, user and producer accuracies). An overall accuracy above 89.33% and a kappa index of 0.86, significantly higher than the one obtained with the use of the traditional reflective bands as a standalone data-set and other analysis stages. On average, the results also indicate high producer and user accuracies (i.e. above 80%) for most of the classes with a McNemar’s Z score of 9.00 at 95% confidence interval showing significant improvement compared with classification using reflective bands as standalone. Overall, the results of this study indicate that the integration of the Landsat 8’s OLI and TIR data presents an invaluable potential for accurate and robust land cover classification in a complex urban landscape, especially in areas where the availability of high resolution datasets remains a challenge.     

Spatial-temporal impacts of urban land use land cover on land surface temperature: Case studies of two Canadian urban areas

The surface fabric of urbanized areas, (i.e. its constituent land covers and land uses) plays an essential role in the generation of the urban/rural temperature differences, i.e. the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. Land surface information, derived from satellite imagery, and complementary information such as demographics can be used as the basis for an understanding of the atmospheric and surface thermal variations within cities. The results of comprehensive land surface characterizations of two major Canadian urban areas, the Greater Toronto Area and Ottawa-Gatineau, are described. Spatial information, including land cover fraction maps, land use and its historic changes, population density maps are compared with intra-urban surface temperature variations derived from satellite thermal imagery. Three aspects of the impacts of land cover and land use on urban land thermal characteristics are addressed, namely, (a) the relationships between surface temperature and subpixel land cover and population density (b) intra-city seasonal temperature variations and (c) the intensification of the urban heat island effect due to urban built-up land growth.     

Combining AVHRR imagery with CORINE Land Cover data to observe forest fires and to assess their consequences

This paper describes an operational application of AVHRR satellite imagery in combination with the satellite-based land cover database CORINE Land Cover (CLC) for the comprehensive observation and follow-up of 10000 fire outbreaks and of their consequences in Greece during summer 2000. In the first stage, we acquired and processed satellite images on a daily basis with the aim of smoke-plume tracking and fire-core detection at the national level. Imagery was acquired eight times per day and derived from all AVHRR spectral channels. In the second stage, we assessed the consequences of fire on vegetation by producing a burnt-area map on the basis of multi-annual normalised vegetation indices using AVHRR data in combination with CLC. In the third stage we used again CLC to assess the land cover of burnt areas in the entire country. The results compared successfully to available inventories for that year. Burnt area was estimated with an accuracy ranging from 88% to 95%, depending on the predominant land cover type. These results, along with the low cost and high temporal resolution of AVHRR satellite imagery, suggest that the combination of low-resolution satellite data with harmonised CLC data can be applied operationally for forest fire and post-fire assessments at the national and at a pan-European level.     

Monitoring US agriculture: the US Department of Agriculture,National Agricultural Statistics Service,Cropland Data Layer Program

The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) produces the Cropland Data Layer (CDL) product, which is a raster-formatted, geo-referenced, crop-specific, land cover map. CDL program inputs include medium resolution satellite imagery, USDA collected ground truth and other ancillary data, such as the National Land Cover Data set. A decision tree-supervised classification method is used to generate the freely available state-level crop cover classifications and provide crop acreage estimates based upon the CDL and NASS June Agricultural Survey ground truth to the NASS Agricultural Statistics Board. This paper provides an overview of the NASS CDL program. It describes various input data, processing procedures, classification and validation, accuracy assessment, CDL product specifications, dissemination venues and the crop acreage estimation methodology. In general, total crop mapping accuracies for the 2009 CDLs ranged from 85% to 95% for the major crop categories.     

Classifying historical remotely sensed imagery using a tempo-spatial feature evolution (T-SFE) model

Large and growing archives of orbital imagery of the earth’s surface collected over the past 40 years provide an important resource for documenting past and current land cover and environmental changes. However uses of these data are limited by the lack of coincident ground information with which either to establish discrete land cover classes or to assess the accuracy of their identification. Herein is proposed an easy-to-use model, the Tempo-Spatial Feature Evolution (T-SFE) model, designed to improve land cover classification using historical remotely sensed data and ground cover maps obtained at later times. This model intersects (1) a map of spectral classes (S-classes) of an initial time derived from the standard unsupervised ISODATA classifier with (2) a reference map of ground cover types (G-types) of a subsequent time to generate (3) a target map of overlaid patches of S-classes and G-types. This model employs the rules of Count Majority Evaluation, and Subtotal Area Evaluation that are formulated on the basis of spatial feature evolution over time to quantify spatial evolutions between the S-classes and G-types on the target map. This model then applies these quantities to assign G-types to S-classes to classify the historical images. The model is illustrated with the classification of grassland vegetation types for a basin in Inner Mongolia using 1985 Landsat TM data and 2004 vegetation map. The classification accuracy was assessed through two tests: a small set of ground sampling data in 1985, and an extracted vegetation map from the national vegetation cover data (NVCD) over the study area in 1988. Our results show that a 1985 image classification was achieved using this method with an overall accuracy of 80.6%. However, the classification accuracy depends on a proper calibration of several parameters used in the model.     

基于遥感的长沙市城市热岛与土地利用/覆盖变化研究

基于多时相Landsat TM/ETM+影像,首先计算长沙市地表亮度温度,然后利用NDVI(归一化植被指数)、MNDWI(改进 的归一化水体指数)、NDBI(归一化建筑指数)和NDBaI(归一化裸土指数)4个指数,采用决策树分类方法对长沙市影像进行 土地利用/覆盖分类。在此基础上,对长沙市城市热岛的空间分布特征、时空演变特征以及城市热岛与土地利用/覆盖变化和各种影 响因子之间的关系进行研究。结果表明,随着长沙市城区范围的不断扩张,城市热岛范围也不断增大; 土地利用/覆盖类型的变化 会改变地表温度的空间分布,城市用地和裸地是城市热岛强度的主要贡献因素,水体和林地具有较好的降温作用。地表温度与4种 归一化指数的回归分析表明,它们之间存在明显的相关性,不同土地利用/覆盖类型的地表温度存在较大差异。     

Monitoring Detailed Land‐Cover Changes in Shrubland Habitat Reserves Using Multi‐temporal IKONOS Data

Abstract

The objective of this study was to explore the utility of multi‐temporal, multi‐spectral image data acquired by the IKONOS satellite system for monitoring detailed land cover changes within shrubland habitat reserves. Sub‐pixel accuracy in date‐to‐date registration was achieved, in spite of the irregular relief of the study area and the high spatial resolution of the imagery. Change vector classification enabled features ranging in size from tens of square meters to several hectares to be detected and six general land cover change classes to be identified. Interpretation of the change vector classification product in conjunction with visual inspection of the multi‐temporal imagery enabled identification of specific change types such as: vegetation disturbance and associated increase in soil exposure, shrub removal, urban edge vegetation clearing and fire maintenance, increase in vegetation cover, spread of invasive plant species, fire scars and subsequent recovery, erosional scouring, trail and road development, and expansion of bicycle disturbances.     

Topographic and Satellite Information for Preliminary Route Location

Topographic information from maps and geographical information systems (GIS) has been combined with satellite data (SPOT Panchromatic, SPOT Multispectral and Landsat Thematic Mapper) to derive a product that may be valuable in preliminary route location studies. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the classification accuracy of this combined product, to compare levels of ground detail obtainable from different types of satellite imagery against aerial photography, and to present an example application on the use of the combined product.
The classification accuracy of the combined product was dependent on the type of land cover and was 83 to 100 per cent successful, with accuracy exceeding 95 per cent for most land cover types. The overall accuracy of the product was almost 95 per cent, with accuracy based on KHAT statistics of 92 per cent. Varying levels of ground detail were attainable from different types of satellite imagery. This detail may be adequate for preliminary route selection, especially in the absence of aerial photographs and GIS. The combined product presented in this study was applied successfully in selecting the optimal route for the Greater Amman ring road.     

Estimating regional forest cover in East Texas using Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data

This study tested the degree to which single date, near-nadir AVHRR image could provide forest cover estimates comparable to the phase I estimates obtained from the traditional photo-based techniques of the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program. FIA program is part of the United States Department of Agriculture-Forest Service (USFS). A six-county region in east Texas was selected for this study. Manual identification of ground control points (GCPs) was necessary for geo-referencing this image with higher precision. Through digital image classification techniques forest classes were separated from other non-forest classes in the study area. Classified AVHRR imagery was compared to two verification datasets: photo-center points and the USFS FIA plots. The overall accuracy values obtained were 67 and 71%, respectively. Analyses of the error matrices indicated that the AVHRR image correctly classified more forested areas than non-forested areas; however, most of the errors could be attributed to certain land cover and land use classes. Several pastures with tree cover, which were field-identified as non-forest, were misclassified as forest in the AVHRR image using the image classification system developed in this study. Recently harvested and young pine forests were misclassified as non-forest in the imagery. County-level forest cover estimates obtained from the AVHRR imagery were within the 95% confidence interval of the corresponding estimates from traditional photo-based methods. These results indicate that AVHRR imagery could be used to estimate county-level forest cover; however, the precision associated with these estimates was lower than that obtained through traditional photo-based techniques.     

Evaluation of global land cover maps for cropland area estimation in the conterminous United States

Global land cover data could provide continuously updated cropland acreage and distribution information, which is essential to a wide range of applications over large geographical regions. Cropland area estimates were evaluated in the conterminous USA from four recent global land cover products: MODIS land cover (MODISLC) at 500-m resolution in 2010, GlobCover at 300-m resolution in 2009, FROM-GLC and FROM-GLC-agg at 30-m resolution based on Landsat imagery circa 2010 against the US Department of Agriculture survey data. Ratio estimators derived from the 30-m resolution Cropland Data Layer were applied to MODIS and GlobCover land cover products, which greatly improved the estimation accuracy of MODISLC by enhancing the correlation and decreasing mean deviation (MDev) and RMSE, but were less effective on GlobCover product. We found that, in the USA, the CDL adjusted MODISLC was more suitable for applications that concern about the aggregated county cropland acreage, while FROM-GLC-agg gave the least deviation from the survey at the state level. Correlation between land cover map estimates and survey estimates is significant, but stronger at the state level than at the county level. In regions where most mismatches happen at the county level, MODIS tends to underestimate, whereas MERIS and Landsat images incline to overestimate. Those uncertainties should be taken into consideration in relevant applications. Excluding interannual and seasonal effects, R² of the FROM-GLC regression model increased from 0.1 to 0.4, and the slope is much closer to one. Our analysis shows that images acquired in growing season are most suitable for Landsat-based cropland mapping in the conterminous USA.     

Resolution vs. image quality in pre-tsunami imagery used for tsunami impact models in Aceh,Indonesia

Land cover roughness coefficients (LCRs) have been used in multivariate spatial models to test the mitigation potential of coastal vegetation to reduce impacts of the 2004 tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia. Previously, a Landsat 2002 satellite imagery was employed to derive land cover maps, which were then combined with vegetation characteristics, i.e., stand height, stem diameter and planting density to obtain LCRs. The present study tested LCRs extracted from 2003 and 2004 Landsat (30 m) images as well as a combination of 2003 and 2004 higher spatial resolution SPOT (10 m) imagery, while keeping the previous vegetation characteristics. Transects along the coast were used to extract land cover, whenever availability and visibility allowed. These new LCRs applied in previously developed tsunami impact models on wave outreach, casualties and damages confirmed previous findings regarding distance to the shoreline as a main factor reducing tsunami impacts. Nevertheless, the models using the new LCRs did not perform better than the original one. Particularly casualties models using 2002 LCRs performed better (δAIC > 2) than the more recent Landsat and SPOT counterparts. Cloud cover at image acquisition for Landsat and low area coverage for SPOT images decreased statistical predictive power (fewer observations). Due to the large spatial heterogeneity of tsunami characteristics as well as topographic and land-use features, it was more important to cover a larger area. Nevertheless, if more land cover classes would be referenced and high resolution imagery with low cloud cover would be available, the full benefits of higher spatial resolution imagery used to extract more precise land use roughness coefficients could be exploited.     

Estimating carbon sequestration in the piedmont ecoregion of the United States from 1971 to 2010

Human activities have diverse and profound impacts on ecosystem carbon cycles. The Piedmont ecoregion in the eastern United States has undergone significant land use and land cover change in the past few decades. The purpose of this study was to use newly available land use and land cover change data to quantify carbon changes within the ecoregion. Land use and land cover change data (60-m spatial resolution) derived from sequential remotely sensed Landsat imagery were used to generate 960-m resolution land cover change maps for the Piedmont ecoregion. These maps were used in the Integrated Biosphere Simulator (IBIS) to simulate ecosystem carbon stock and flux changes from 1971 to 2010. Results show that land use change, especially urbanization and forest harvest had significant impacts on carbon sources and sinks. From 1971 to 2010, forest ecosystems sequestered 0.25 Mg C ha?1 yr?1, while agricultural ecosystems sequestered 0.03 Mg C ha?1 yr?1. The total ecosystem C stock increased from 2271 Tg C in 1971 to 2402 Tg C in 2010, with an annual average increase of 3.3 Tg C yr?1. Terrestrial lands in the Piedmont ecoregion were estimated to be weak net carbon sink during the study period. The major factors contributing to the carbon sink were forest growth and afforestation; the major factors contributing to terrestrial emissions were human induced land cover change, especially urbanization and forest harvest. An additional amount of carbon continues to be stored in harvested wood products. If this pool were included the carbon sink would be stronger.     

Integration of remote sensing and GIS in monitoring the dynamics of land cover in Oroba-Kibos catchment area, Kenya

Land cover in Kenya is in a state of fl ux at different spatial and temporal scales. This compromises environmental integrity and socioeconomic stability of the population hence increasing their vulnerability to the externalities of environmental change. The Oroba-Kibos catchment area in western Kenya is one locality where rapid land use changes have taken place over the last 30 years. The shrubs, swamps, natural forests and other critical ecosystems have been converted on the altar of agriculture, human settlement, fuel wood and timber. This paper presents the results of a study that aimed at providing spatially-explicit information for effective remedial response through (a) Mapping the land cover; (b) Identifying the spatial distribution of land cover changes; (c) Determining the nature, rates and magnitude of the land cover changes, and; (d) Establishing the drivers of land use leading to land cover changes in Oroba-Kibos catchment area. Bi-temporal Landsat TM imagery, fi eld observation, household survey and ancillary data were obtained. Per-fi eld classifi cation of the Landsat TM imagery was performed in a GIS and the resultant land cover maps assessed using the fi eld observation data. Post-classifi cation comparison of the maps was then done to detect changes in land cover that had occurred between 1994 and 2008. SPSS was used to analyze the household survey data and attribute the detected land cover changes to their causes. The fi ndings showed that 9 broad classes characterize the catchment area including the natural forests, swamps, natural water bodies, woodlands, shrublands, built-up lands, grasslands, bare lands and croplands. Croplands are dominant and accounted for about 65% (57122 ha) of the total land in 1994, which increased at the rate of 0.89% to 73% (64772 ha) in 2008, while natural water bodies has the least spatial coverage accounting for about 0.6% (561 ha) of the total land in 1994, which diminished at the rate of 3.57% to 0.3% (260 ha) in 2008. Climate, altitude, access and rights to land, demographic changes, poverty, political governance, market availability and economic returns are the interacting mix of proximate and underlying factors that drive the land cover changes in Oroba-Kibos catchment area.     

Drivers of land cover and land use changes in St. Louis metropolitan area over the past 40 years characterized by remote sensing and census population data

In this study, we explored the spatial and temporal patterns of land cover and land use (LCLU) and population change dynamics in the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area. The goal of this paper was to quantify the drivers of LCLU using long-term Landsat data from 1972 to 2010. First, we produced LCLU maps by using Landsat images from 1972, 1982, 1990, 2000, and 2010. Next, tract level population data of 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010 were converted to 1-km square grid cells. Then, the LCLU maps were integrated with basic grid cell data to represent the proportion of each land cover category within a grid cell area. Finally, the proportional land cover maps and population census data were combined to investigate the relationship between land cover and population change based on grid cells using Pearson's correlation coefficient, ordinary least square (OLS), and local level geographically weighted regression (GWR). Land cover changes in terms of the percentage of area affected and rates of change were compared with population census data with a focus on the analysis of the spatial-temporal dynamics of urban growth patterns. The correlation coefficients of land cover categories and population changes were calculated for two decadal intervals between 1970 and 2010. Our results showed a causal relationship between LCLU changes and population dynamics over the last 40 years. Urban sprawl was positively correlated with population change. However, the relationship was not linear over space and time. Spatial heterogeneity and variations in the relationship demonstrate that urban sprawl was positively correlated with population changes in suburban area and negatively correlated in urban core and inner suburban area of the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area. These results suggest that the imagery reflects processes of urban growth, inner-city decline, population migration, and social spatial inequality. The implications provide guidance for sustainable urban planning and development. We also demonstrate that grid cells allow robust synthesis of remote sensing and socioeconomic data to advance our knowledge of urban growth dynamics from both spatial and temporal scales and its association with population change.     

Enhanced land use/cover classification of heterogeneous tropical landscapes using support vector machines and textural homogeneity

Land use/cover classification is a key research field in remote sensing and land change science as thematic maps derived from remotely sensed data have become the basis for analyzing many socio-ecological issues. However, land use/cover classification remains a difficult task and it is especially challenging in heterogeneous tropical landscapes where nonetheless such maps are of great importance. The present study aims at establishing an efficient classification approach to accurately map all broad land use/cover classes in a large, heterogeneous tropical area, as a basis for further studies (e.g., land use/cover change, deforestation and forest degradation). Specifically, we first compare the performance of parametric (maximum likelihood), non-parametric (k-nearest neighbor and four different support vector machines – SVM), and hybrid (unsupervised–supervised) classifiers, using hard and soft (fuzzy) accuracy assessments. We then assess, using the maximum likelihood algorithm, what textural indices from the gray-level co-occurrence matrix lead to greater classification improvements at the spatial resolution of Landsat imagery (30 m), and rank them accordingly. Finally, we use the textural index that provides the most accurate classification results to evaluate whether its usefulness varies significantly with the classifier used. We classified imagery corresponding to dry and wet seasons and found that SVM classifiers outperformed all the rest. We also found that the use of some textural indices, but particularly homogeneity and entropy, can significantly improve classifications. We focused on the use of the homogeneity index, which has so far been neglected in land use/cover classification efforts, and found that this index along with reflectance bands significantly increased the overall accuracy of all the classifiers, but particularly of SVM. We observed that improvements in producer's and user's accuracies through the inclusion of homogeneity were different depending on land use/cover classes. Early-growth/degraded forests, pastures, grasslands and savanna were the classes most improved, especially with the SVM radial basis function and SVM sigmoid classifiers, though with both classifiers all land use/cover classes were mapped with producer's and user's accuracies of ∼90%. Our classification approach seems very well suited to accurately map land use/cover of heterogeneous landscapes, thus having great potential to contribute to climate change mitigation schemes, conservation initiatives, and the design of management plans and rural development policies.     

Remote sensing and gis applications in the identification of aquaculture hotspots at village level

Interpretation of IRS LISS II and LISS III imagery has revealed the various landforms as well as land use/land cover features in a part of the Godavari delta coastal belt. A comparative analysis of geomorphological vs. land use/land cover maps suggested that the landforms exert a certain degree of control over human land use activities even in this monotonously plain area. Further, an analysis of the sequential imagery pertaining to 1992 and 2001 aimed at detecting the land use/land cover change has indicated that the aquaculture has phenomenally increased by 9,293.5 ha during the 9-year period. At the same time, the cropland which occupied about 29,104 ha in 1992 has been reduced to 19,153.9 ha by 2001 mainly due to the encroachment of aquaculture. Village level data on temporal variation in land use/land cover extracted through GIS analysis revealed that in 14 out of the total 39 villages in the area, the conversion of cropland into aquaculture ponds was more than 30% with the highest conversion rate of 89.8% in Gondi village. These fourteen villages, which are designated as ‘aquaculture hotspots’ are grouped into 4 priority classes based on the intensity of conversion.