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FOREST COVER AND LAND USE MAPPING OF A REGION OF BARAK 
VALLEY OF ASSAM, INDIA USING IRS LISS-II IMAGERY. 
Ghosh, Jayanta K, 
Lecturer, Regional Engineering College, Silchar 788 O10, INDIA. 
H. Lamar, and N. Roel, 
Students, R.E.C. Silchar 788 010, INDIA. 
ABSTRACT 
The Barak Valley of Assam alongwith the hills around 
are endowed with rich and diverse vegetation resources. 
Deforestation and raw materials extraction for indust- 
rial purposes are heavily altering the forested land- 
SCape. 
The present study deals with mapping of forest 
Cover and land use in the region covered by imagery 
15-50 (B2 segmept) having scene centre 24 
55'22"East Longitude of Indian Remote 
Latitude and 92 
47'20" North 
Sensing CIS Satellite Linear Imaging Self-scanning 
The study was undertaken by 
placing the imageries (bands2,3,4 and F.C.C) on light 
Sensor (LISS 
table using a hand magnifying lens. 
II sensor. 
The elements of 
visual interpretation elements like tone, texture 
The map thus delineated shows 
the spatial distribution of bio-climatic vegetation 
concentration and the land use patterns. 
etc. are used as keys. 
KEY WORDS : IRS-imagery, visual interpretation, 
mapping, land use, forest cover. 
INTRODUCTION 
Mapping and monitoring of land cover 
is one of the foremost requirement for 
planning, management and conservation 
of land and forest. Remote Sensing pla- 
ys à vital role in mapping the existing 
resource information at particular period 
of time. Detailed forest cover type and 
land use mapping have been successfully 
done in various parts of country and ab- 
road using aerial photointerpretation te- 
chniques rares Forest Survey of India 
and National Remote Sensing Agency,India) 
Mapping of forest cover and land use have 
also been done using satellite imageries 
viz. LANDSAT Multispectral Scanner (MSS) 
False Colour Composite (FCCs') (Gupta,D. 
M. et al, 1983), Thematic Mapper FCCs' 
(Ghosh, R et al, 1990). Lots of work is 
also reported relating to land cover cla- 
ssification using LANDSAT Thematic Mapper 
data through digital classification tech- 
niques (Mikihiro, et al, 1986). However, 
in the present study authors have attemp- 
ted to map land cover including forest 
using Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satell- 
ite Linear Imaging Self-scanning (LISS)II 
data using visual interpretation techni- 
ques. 
STUDY AREA 
The study area lies approximately be- 
tween 24 30,to, 25 15" North Latitude and 
92°30’ to 93°15 East Longitude covering an 
area of about 25,000 square kilometers 
The location of the area is most pronoun- 
435 
ced by presence of the Barak River, which 
traverses through the middle of the scene. 
Physiographically, the Barak River Valley, 
having very gentle slope of average height 
20 metersabove mean sea level lies in the 
middle of the scene surrounded by success- 
ive ranges of hills on three sides. The 
heights of above hills varies upto 1500 
meters and endowed with rich forest cover 
mainly bamboo. The hill ranges mainly 
comprise relatively compact and resistant 
older rock units exposed in the anti-cli- 
nal crests, whereas the valleys are compo- 
sed of younger and softer formation expo- 
sed in the synclinal trough. The geology 
consists of alternate Surma and Tipam se- 
ries of rocks with bedding plane along the 
North-South direction. The Barak Valley 
is usually characterised by exposures of 
younger rock formation of alluvium folded 
into narrow box like anclines separated 
by wide flat synclines. The other rocks 
present in the scene are (i) Dihing and 
Dupitila series, (ii) Barail series, (iii) 
Jaintia and Dishang series. There are 
numbers of tributaries on both sides of 
the river Barak. The individual rivers 
and streams are of anastomatic pattern and 
the overall drainage pattern of the scene 
is dendritic pattern. 
MATERIAL USED 
For the present study, Indian Remote 
Sensing (IRS) satellite Linear Imaging 
Self-scanning sensor (LISS)II imageries 
(scene number 15-50, B2 segment) of scale