Identification and Mapping of Wasteland in Birbhum District, West Bengal

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to the identification and mapping of the wastelands using satellite data and GIS techniques of Birbhum District. The wastelands of the district are identified and categorized through the successive stages of visual interpretation of satellite data on 1:50,000 scale, field checking and final interpretation. The wasteland boundaries as well as area coverage are processed and finalized category-wise and block-wise. The study has shown that six different types of wastelands are present in the district with total coverage 14854 hectares i.e. 3.31% of total geographical area of the district. Out of these total wastelands, land with/without scrub is the most dominant type (67.44% of total wasteland of the district) followed by degraded forest (26.52%), barren hill/rocky/stony wastes (2.31%), sand riverine (2.15%), mining (1.15%) and gullied and or ravenous (0.41%). The first two categories of wastelands combinedly form majority (93.96%) while others constitute very low or negligible share in wasteland area of the district. Such type of information base is very useful in plan formulation and implementation at various levels.