International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXII Part 7C2, UNISPACE IK, Vienna, 1999 
35 
I5PR5 
UNISPACE III - ISPRS Workshop on 
“Resource Mapping from Space” 
9:00 am -12:00 pm, 22 July 1999, VIC Room B 
Vienna, Austria 
I5PR5 
While structural hills favor more run-off, the deep buried 
pediments with considerable thickness of -weathered material and 
jointed rock is the most favorable for groundwater development. 
Pediments and buried pediment-shallow have poor to nil ground 
water potential. 
Udic Ustochrepts constitute 51.27 per cent of the area while 
shallow soils (Lithic Ustorthents) cover only 1.8 per cent of the 
watershed. Moderately deep black soils and alluvial soils cover 
33.9 per cent of the study area. The association of Typic 
Ustorthents and Udic Ustochrepts, and Udic Ustorthents Typic 
Ustochrepts cover 2.7 and 10.4 per cent of the geographical area 
of the watershed. 
Being agrarian society, the crop land constitute 74 per cent of the 
total area (Fig. 2). Only 1.75 per cent of the watershed area is, 
however, under forest. Plantations occupy 50 per cent of the area 
under agriculture whereas the area under wastelands is of the 
order of 21.4 per cent of the watershed area. The lake / tank / 
reservoir constitute less than one per cent of the area. 
9.2 Collateral Information 
The collateral information includes the information on slope, 
aspect, altitude and socio-economic conditions. As mentioned 
earlier, the information on slope was generated from 
topographical sheets by taking 20 in contour interval as a base. 
More than 90 per cent of the area has less than 10 per cent slope. 
With a population of 52,793 (based on 191 census), 22676 
persons are engaged in agriculture while 301 persons are 
household and industrial workers. 
9.3 Action Plan 
The information on land and water resources of the watershed 
that could be derived from ERS-1B L1SS-II image at 1:50,000 
scale enables the policy makers and administrators having an 
overview of the potentials and limitations of the natural resources 
of entire watershed and eventually helps identifying potential and 
critical areas requiring detailed investigation. Based on 
information on land and water resources, terrain attributes like 
slope, aspect, altitude, quantum and distribution of rainfall, an 
integration key was developed after scanning the spatial data on 
land and water resources on a CONTEX FSS 800 black and 
white and white scanner, and studying them in a GIS 
environment along with collateral information, the optimal land 
use for sustained development (Fig. 3) was generated. 
For optimal utilization of available agricultural land, agro 
horticulture has been proposed in 6759 ha whereas rain-fed 
agriculture following soil conservation measures lias been 
recommended for 30 ha, silvi-pasture and horticulture has been 
suggested for 97 ha and 5 ha, respectively after appropriately 
developing groundwater. Since the forests in the watershed are 
denuded, interface forestry (forest eco-restoration) in the 
Sundamalai reserve forest and afforestation with fuel wood lias 
been advocated. 
Soil erosion by water is one of the critical problem. In order to 
arrest soil loss and run-off check dams with suitable soil 
conservation measures like vegetative bunding, construction of 
check walls across gullies have been suggested. Such check dams 
not only help arresting soil loss but contribute significantly to 
groundwater recharge. In addition, the construction of percolation 
ponds lias been advocated at suitable locations which are 
exclusively meant for groundwater recharge. 
9.4 Impact Assessment 
The implementation of suggested action plan for land water 
resources development by the district authorities started during 
1994-95 and an estimated Rs. 16.27 lakhs (US $37,800) lias been 
spent on various developmental activities. Different activities 
initiated for development of land and water resources have 
resulted in recharging groundwater and improvement in the 
vegetation cover by way of raising agricultural and horticulture, 
and afforestation. Such changes in the vegetation cover have 
been monitored using temporal IRS-1B LISS-II data of Febmaiy, 
1992 and IRS-1C LISS-II1 data of February, 1998. The extent of 
dense vegetation cover in the wasteland lias increased from 523 
ha during 1992 to 1337 ha during 1998. Similarly, the extent of 
sparsely vegetated areas lias increased from 246 lia during 
1992 to 482 ha during 1998. 
10. CONCLUSIONS 
Sustainable development aims at maintaining the balance 
between often conflicting ideals of economic growth and 
nurturing environmental quality and viability. Remote sensing 
provides a sound data base for generating baseline information 
on natural resources, a pre-requisite for planning and 
implementation , and monitoring of any developmental program. 
GIS offers an ideal environment for integration of spatial and 
attribute data on natural resources for formulating the 
developmental plan of an area taking into account social, cultural 
and economic needs of the people. The digital elevation 
model(DEM) generated from the measurements made by Global 
Positioning System(GIS) through digital photogrammetric 
approach enable further refining the developmental plans. 
Creation of digital database on natural resources for Indian sub 
continent under a national project titled “National(Natural) 
Resources Information System(NRIS)” is, in fact, a major step 
forward in this direction. The developmental plans, thus 
formulated, could be implemented through participatory Rural 
Appraisal(PRA) program. 
Despite tremendous development in sensor technology, data 
processing and analysis/interpretation techniques, data specific 
inputs, development of GIS-based land evaluation models for 
land capability, land irrigability, suitability of land for a specific