2. INTRODUCTION
Land use/cover is two separate terminologies which are often used interchangeably.
Land cover refers to the physical characteristics of earth’s surface, captured in the
distribution of vegetation, water, soil and other physical features of the land, including
those created solely by human activities e.g., settlements.
land-use refers to the way in which land has been used by humans and their habitat.
The land use/cover pattern of a region is an outcome of natural and socio-economic
factors and their utilization by man in time and space.
3. Land use/cover changes is a widespread and accelerating process, mainly driven by natural
phenomena and anthropogenic activities, which in turn drive changes that would impact
natural ecosystem.
Land-use and land-cover change has become a central component in current strategies in
managing natural resources and monitoring environmental changes.
Land cover change is a major concern of global environment change.
The change in land cover occurs even in the absence of human activities through natural
processes whereas land use change is the manipulation of land cover by human being for
multiple purposes- food, fuel wood, timber, fodder, leaf, litter, medicine, raw materials and
recreation.
Therefore, land use affects land cover and changes in land cover affect land use.
4. ROLE OF GEO-INFORMATICS
Geo-informatics mainly consists of Remote Sensing and GIS(Geographic Information System).
Today, earth resource satellites data are very applicable and useful for land use/cover change
detection studies.
Remote sensing and Geographical Information system (GIS) provide fundamental tools which
can be useful in the investigation at the village, district as well as the city levels.
Remote sensing becomes useful because it provides synoptic view and multi-temporal Land
uses / Land cover data that are often required.
GIS is the technology which has been used to view and analyze data from a geographic
perspective.
5. Application of remotely sensed data made possible to study the changes in land cover in less
time, at low cost and with better accuracy in association with GIS that provides suitable
platform for data analysis, update and retrieval.
The advent of high spatial resolution satellite imagery and more advanced image processing
and GIS technologies, has resulted in a switch to more routine and consistent monitoring and
modeling of land use/land cover patterns.
Remote-sensing has been widely used in updating land use/cover maps and land use/cover
mapping has become one of the most important applications of remote sensing.
Remote sensing data provide valuable multi-temporal data on the processes and patterns of
LU/LC change, and GIS is useful for mapping and analyzing these patterns.
In addition, retrospective and consistent synoptic coverage from satellites is particularly useful
in areas where changes have been rapid.
6. CONCLUSION
Geo-informatics has been widely used in land use/land cover studies for
various purposes such as planning, management and utilizing of land due
to its repetitive and synoptic viewing capabilities, as well as multispectral
capabilities and time saving techniques. It helps us to store, analyze,
manipulate and display land use/land cover data.
7. REFERENCES
Jensen, J.R. 1996. Introductory Digital Image Processing, Second
Edition, Prentice-hall Press, New Jersey
Mas, J.F. Monitoring land-cover changes: a comparison of change
detection techniques. International Journal of Remote Sensing 1999,
20 (1), 139-152.
T. M. Lillesand and R. W. Kiefer, Remote Sensing and Image
Interpretation, John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, USA, 4th edition,
2000.