Monitoring Urban Land-Cover Features using Resourcesat LISS-III Data

Abstract

In urban environment especially in the trans-urban regions the changes in land-cover features are quite frequent and substantial. With availability of medium resolution satellite-data reliable and timely information on changes in land-cover features in the peripheral areas of the urban settlement could be generated. In a case study presented here, we have analyzed the land-cover changes in the trans-urban area of Hyderabad metropolitan city using bi-temporal Resourcesat -1 and-2 Linear Imaging self-scanning Sensor (LISS-III) data for the period 2005 and 2011. Radiometric normalization using dark object subtraction (DOS) method followed by co-registration of geo-referenced datasets was carried out. Subsequently, image analysis for deriving land-cover features was carried out using Gaussian Maximum likelihood classifier (MLC). The results show that because of urbanization the most notable changes in spatial extent have occurred in the scrubs areas followed by cropland. The article describes in detail the changes that have taken place in the land cover features.