Satellite

Biography

Biography: P S Roy

Abstract

India has experienced major land use and land cover Change (LULCC) over the past few decades. It has resulted in changes in the natural ecosystems and habitats supporting the rich biodiversity and threatening conservation efforts. For the first time satellite remote sensing has been used to prepare a seamless national level vegetation type (2005) and land use and land cover (LULC) maps (at decadal intervals for 1985, 1995 and 2005) has been prepared and for understanding the long-term usage patterns of natural resources and facilitating sustainable management to plan, monitor and evaluate development. The study characterizes and maps detailed vegetation type distribution in the country in terms of occurrence and distribution, area, percentage of protected area (PA) covered by each vegetation type, range of elevation, mean annual temperature and precipitation over the past 100 years. The LULC maps follow the classification to ensure compatibility with other global/regional LULC datasets for comparison and integration. The study highlights the changes i.e., loss of forest cover in central and northeast India, increase of cropland area in western India, growth of peri-urban area, and relative increase in plantations. The study compares national vegetation and decadal LULC maps with Glob Cover, Hold ridge’s life zone map and potential natural vegetation (PNV) maps) and global LULC products (Glob Cover and MODIS) respectively, using 15,565 ground control points to assess the accuracy (>90%). The database is used for national and regional studies on land dynamics, drivers of change and climate change research. The digital vegetation map is now available through a web portal (http://bis.iirs.gov.in).