Wasteland identification in India using satellite remote sensing

Abstract

An area of about 329 million hectares comprising the entire Indian territory has been studied using Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS) false colour composite (FCC) diapositives of 1 : 1 million scale. Different wasteland categories such as salt-affected land, gullied or ravined land, water-logged or marshy land, undulating upland with or without scrub, jhum or forest blank, sandy areas (coastal or desert), barren hill ridge or rock outcrops and snow-covered or glacial areas have been identified and delineated with the aid of monoscopic visual interpretation techniques on an experimental basis. The interpretation technique was supported by intensive ground data and previous geographical knowledge of the area. The area under wastelands in India has been estimated to be of the order of 53.3 million hectares (i.e., 16.2 per cent of the total geographical area of the country). An accuracy of 80 to 90 per cent has been achieved in the identification and mapping of wastelands when compared with the ground surveys. Based on this study, a detailed wasteland mapping project in 146 districts (the districts having 15 per cent or more of wastelands) has been conceived at the insistence of the National Wastelands Development Board at 1:50000 scale using Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) FCC prints made from bands 2, 3 and 4. A suitable wasteland classification system adoptable for remote sensing techniques has also been developed in India. Furthermore a detailed wastelands image interpretation key using remotely-sensed Landsat TM data has also been developed and is presented in this paper.

Remote Sensing Applications in Mapping Salt Affected Soils

“…Different multispectral satellite data have been interpreted visually for mapping SAS (Sharma and Bhargawa, 1988;Singh and Dwivedi, 1989;Narayan et al, 1989;Verma et al, 1994;Dwivedi, 1994;Singh, 1994;Mandal and Sharma, 2001Sharma et al, 2011) and their categories (Rao and Venkatratnam, 1991;Kalra and Joshi, 1996;Dwivedi et al, 1999;Sharma et al, 2000;Sujatha et al, 2000) with limited field checks. On a standard FCC, salt affected areas are generally identified as scattered and non-contiguous patches of irregular shapes with fine to mottled texture and bright to dull white colour (subjected to moisture content) (Sharma and Bhargawa, 1988;Narayan et al, 1989;Verma et al, 1994). However, surface features appearing in similar tones on FCC may reduce the accuracy.…”

Reappraising Natures and Perspectives of Wasteland in the Developing World with a Focus on India

“…There is a diverse range of the academic literature across disciplines studying wasteland, from physical to social sciences. Physical geographers are mainly concerned with the location-specific identification of wasteland clusters and their categories through the application of geospatial data [19][20][21]. Agriculture scientists primarily focus on crop suitability analysis in different wasteland areas [22][23][24][25].…”

Reappraising Natures and Perspectives of <em>Wasteland </em>in Developing World with a Focus on India

“…There is a diverse range of academic literature across disciplines studying wasteland, from physical to social sciences. Physical geographers are mainly concerned with the location-specific identification of wasteland clusters and their categories through the application of geospatial data [19][20][21]. Agriculture scientists primarily focus on crop suitability analysis in different wasteland areas [22][23][24][25].…”