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IAPRS & SIS, Vol.34, Part 7, "Resource and Environmental Monitoring", Hyderabad, India, 2002 
  
for states of Nagaland, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Mizoram, 
Haryana, Arunachal Pradesh and regions like West Coast, 
Upper Barak etc. In North Eastern states of India the multi date 
analysis helped to analyse the extent of Shifting Cultivation 
area and the pattern of changes. This helped to protect the 
reserve forest land in these tribal states. The regional analysis 
in Upper Barak helped in the management of saline and 
ravenous areas. Haryana land use / land cover information in 
conjunction with soil maps were used for command area 
development and exploration of ground water from paleo 
channels for agricultural development. 
2.0 LAND USE / LAND COVER 
Land use referred to as man's activities and the various use 
which are carried on Land. Land cover is referred to as “natural 
vegetation, waterbodies, rock / soil, artificial cover and others 
resulting due to land transformation". Since both land use / 
land cover are closely related and are not mutually exclusive 
they are interchangeable as the former is inferred based on the 
land cover and on the contextual evidence. 
2.1 Land Use / Land Cover Classification System 
With the changing times and increasing demand on the 
availability of information on land use / land cover, it becomes 
necessary to have a standard classification system, precise 
definition of land use / land cover and its categories, uniform 
procedures of data collection and mapping on different scales 
for all the States and Union Territories. 
Realising the need for an upto date nationwide land use / land cover 
maps by several departments in the country, as a prelude, a land use 
/ land cover classification system (with 24 categories upto Level-II, 
suitable for mapping on 1:250,000 scale) was developed by NRSA, 
DOS, taking into consideration the existing land use classification 
adopted by NATMO, CAZRI, Ministry of Agriculture, Revenue 
Department, AIS & LUS etc., and the details obtainable from 
satellite imagery. The classification system provided the 
conceptual frame-work for discussions with nearly 40 user 
departments / institutions in the country and finalize acceptable 22 
fold classification system which was adopted for Nationwide Land 
Use / Land Cover Analysis as shown below 
  
LAND USE/LAND COVER CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM 
4. Wastelands 
1. Built-up . 
1.1 Built-upland 4.1 Salt Affected Land 
4.2 Waterlogged Land 
4.3 Marshy/Swampy Land 
2.1 Cropland 4.4 Gullied/Ravinous Land 
Kharif 4.5 Land With/Without Scrub 
4.6 Sandy (Coastal & Desert) 
2. Agricultural Land 
  
Rabi 
Kharif * Rabi 4.7 Barren Rocky/Stony 
Waste/Sheet Rock Area 
Fallow 
; 5. Water Body « 
Plantation FA 
5.1 River/Stream d 
3. Forest is 1 
5.2 Lake/Tank/Reservoir ug —- 
3.1 Evergreen/ 
Semi-evergreen 6. Others 
3.2 Deciduous 6.1 Shifting Cultivation 
3.3 Degraded or 6.2 Grassland/Grazing land 
Scrubland 
6.3 Snow Covered/ 
Glacial Area 
  
34 Forest Blank 
3.5 Forest Plantation 
  
  
3.6 Mangrove 
  
  
  
3.0 NATIONWIDE LAND USE / COVER ANALYSIS 
FOR AGRO-CLIMATIC ZONE PLANNING 
At the request of Planning Commission of India district-wise 
land use / land cover analysis of all the 15 agro-climatic zones, 
using the 22 fold land use / land cover classification system was 
539 
competed using 1988 — 89 satellite data sets. Indian Remote 
Sensing (IRS) Linear Imaging Self Scanner (LISS-I) data of 
kharif (July-October) 1988 and Rabi (November- March) 1989 
data were used to analyse and to generate composite land use / 
cover information on 1:250,000 scale (fig. 1). The need for this 
is to know the actual agricultural cropped area in two different 
seasons and the area left fallow (without crop) separately to 
enable planning for increasing the agricultural production. 
Figure 1 
LAND USE / LAND COVER MAPPING 
(SCALE :1:250,000) 
m 
7 Era 7% CLASSIFIED MAP 
‘ : 4 2 
  
  
ll KHARIF ONLY 
EH] RABI ONLY 
[7] DOUBLE CROP 
B RESIDUAL FALLOW 
Bl WATER LOGGING 
[7] GRASSLAND 
  
3.1 Land Use / Land Cover Analysis 
The multi-date satellite data was analysed to identify and map 
the details of crop land in kharif and rabi seasons, the area 
under double crop (during kharif and rabi seasons), fallow 
lands, different types of forest, degradation status, wasteland, 
waterbodies etc. NRSA with the help of Regional Remote 
Sensing Service Centres (RRSSC's), State Remote Sensing 
Centres and other institutions completed this task using hybrid 
methodology i.e., visual as well as digital methods. Out of 442 
districts in the country, 274 districts are analyzed using visual 
techniques and remaining 168 districts by digital techniques. 
For digital analysis considering the project requirements 
different software modules were developed and integrated to 
the commercially available image analysis software. The 
sequence of steps followed to generate the district-wise 
composite land use / land cover maps using multi-date data is 
shown in figure 2. 
3.2 Land Use / Land Cover Distribution in India 
District-wise land use / land cover statistics generated using 
remote sensing techniques were compiled and tabulated to 
obtain state-wise and country statistics for the year 1988 — 89 
(Tables 1 to 4). 
It is seen from the area under broad (level-I) land use / land 
cover, the total agriculture land area constituted 165.24 million 
hectares (mha) or 50.26 per cent; wastelands 75.53 mha or 
22.98 per cent (including area under degraded forest and forest 
blanks which accounted for 18.08 mha or 5.50 per cent); forest 
47.62