Pant, Daya Nand 
  
diversity and the extension of arable land and other land use types inside the natural cover after its disturbance. The 
objectives are: 
* To assess the spatial and structural changes in forest vegetation along with the changes in landuse/land cover types. 
® To find out the impact of changes on the rural agro-ecosystem. 
STUDY AREA 
Mussoorie, a hill station and tourist attraction, is situated on the ridge and side slopes of outer Garhwal Himalayan range of 
Uttar Pradesh, India. It lies between the geo-coordinates 30° 24' North to 30° 30' North and 77° 59' East to 78° 10' East. 
(Fig. 1) The area consists of hilly and mountainous terrain with minimum and maximum elevation 700 m and 2277 m. 
respectively. The climate is generally sub-tropical to temperate on higher elevation (more than 1800 m). The average 
highest and lowest rainfall recorded at Mussoorie during the period 1987-96 is 5957 mm and 190 mm/year respectively. 
The mean minimum and mean maximum temperature of 10 years duration were recorded as 17.23° C and 9.97° C. There 
are three distinct seasons viz., Monsoon, winter and summer. Winter is mostly cool and of long duration from November to 
March. Snowfall occurs mostly above the elevation range of 1800 m. Forest vegetation consisting of Oak (Quercus 
leucotrichoflora), and Deodar (Cedrus deodara) mostly covers the area. The vegetation in general and the Oak forest in 
particular of the study area have heavily been altered and degraded by human activities. 
MATERIAL AND METHOD 
Data & Material used 
Survey of India Topographical map sheets, 
Aerial photographs of the year 1960 on 1: 60,000 scale (Average.) 
Landsat TM false colour composite image (bands 2,3&4) on 1:62,500 scale, year 1985 
Site specific interviews, 1997 
GIS Package 
Spread sheet 
METHODOLOGY 
Land cover mapping 
Both the aerial and satellite data were interpreted stereoscopically and visually in conjunction with Survey of India maps, 
ground truth information and on the basis of image. An intensive ground truth study was carried out to develop criteria for 
the preparation of interpretation key for both satellite image and aerial photographs. A standard of classification has been 
developed as -Forested land under the classes Oak, Deodar, Pine, Oak-Deodar, Oak- Pine, Degraded forest, Scrub/shrub, 
and non-forested land under Agriculture, Habitation and Lime stone quarry. The interpreted details were transferred into 
base map (1:50,000) through Zoom transferscope. The maps were subsequently reduced to the required size and were 
fairly drawn. 
Change detection 
The fairly drawn maps for the year 1960 and 1985 were digitized and rasterised in GIS. The area for each category of 
mapping units was calculated through histogram generation and tabulation (Table 1). The operation ‘map cross‘ was 
performed for the raster maps of 1960 and 1985 to find out the spatial change in the resultant change map (Fig. 1). The 
change mapping units were reclassified into 5 categories of changes (Fig. 2) consisting of areas of 1) no change 2) forest 
degradation 3) conversion of forest /scrub into agriculture 4) settlement expansion/other economic activities and 5) new 
plantation/regeneration/abandoned fields. In order to find out the pattern of change and unchanged categories the map was 
again reclassified and merged with a segment map showing roads and locations of main habitations. 
  
1112 International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part B7. Amsterdam 2000. 
martes fare —— 
+ + 
m m NH N IM of "y o m. F^ 
IN bend C99 A pod ry LY 
(ot pie. Md DÀ) Ped pede 1 
^2 
£^» cc ££ AY "9m mo r^ 0^ f£ LY