Renewal of Land Use Data Base 
with The Aid of Remote Sensing 
Haruhias SHIMODA, Kiyonari FUKUE 
and Toshibumi SAKATA 
Tokai University Research and Information Center 
2-28-4 TOMIGAYA, SHIBUYA-KU, 
TOKYO 151, JAPAN 
ABSTRACT 
A project to establish National Land Information System 
containing landforms, geological features, land uses, water 
resources and so on was started on 1974 by The National Land 
Agency of Japan and an initial Numerical National Land Information 
(NNLI) was provided. The grid coordinate system of the initial 
NNLI is being utilized now, however land use data should be 
renewed periodically. Since land use data in NNLI were obtained 
by manual interpretation of topographical maps and aerial 
photographs, renewal of the data using the same method required 
extensive man-power. 
This paper describes feasibility studies on renewal of the 
land use data in NNLI using remote sensing data and digital 
processing techniques, which resolves the above problems faced in 
carring out the renewal of NNLI. Several kinds of approaches can 
be considered for the renewal of land use data base. We chose a 
method in which overal object areas are classified without manual 
selection of training areas. In this study, LANDSAT data were 
used for change detection and high altitude infrared color aerial 
photographs were used for classification. 
As a results of this study, the following conclutions were 
obtained.  1)The renewal system of NNLI, which utilizes remote 
sensing data(LANDSAT/ airborn data) and digital processing 
techniques, was established. The method used in this system is 
more timely and economically than conventional interpretation 
method.  2)maximum likelihood classification algorithm can not 
achieve sufficient classification accuracy for land use(not land 
cover) classification. 3)Histgram matching algorithm is highly 
useful for land use classification, although it consumes more 
times than maximum likelihood algorithm. 
I. INTRODUCTION 
  
A project to establish National Land Information system 
containing landforms, geological features, land uses, water 
resources and so on was started on 1974 by The National Land 
Agency of Japan and an initial Numerical National Land Information 
(NNLI) was provided. The grid coordinate system of the initial 
NNLI is being utilized now, however some of these data should be 
renewed periodically.  Especialy, land use data should be renewed 
in shorter interval(several years) than other kinds of data such 
as landforms. Since land use data in NNLI were obtained by manual 
interpretation of topographical maps and aerial photographs, 
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