Horticultural Fruit Crop Plantations Mapping using Geo-informatics Technology in Gujarat State, India

Abstract

The cultivation and production of horticultural crops is known as "Golden Revolution” and India has emerged as the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world. The Central Government of India has started National Horticulture Mission (NHM) for overall development of Horticulture and Gujarat Government has also started Gujarat State Horticulture Mission (GSHM). This mission being implemented in 16-potential districts and covers major fruit crops in the state like mango, sapota, Aonla, banana, coconut etc. Under the GSHM, mapping of fruit crop plantations using Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS) data in Gujarat State was carried out jointly by the Directorate of Agriculture, Govt of Gujarat and Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics (BISAG), Govt of Gujarat. The major objective of this project was mapping of fruit crop plantations at village-level and preparation of village-level Horticultural Atlas of Gujarat State. High spatial resolution digital data from IRS LISS-IV and CARTOSAT-1 with spatial resolutions of 5.8m and 2.5m respectively, covering major fruit growing districts in Gujarat state was analysed for identification and delineations of fruit crop plantations in each survey number on cadastral map. The cadastral maps of each village were geo-referenced with satellite data and survey number boundaries were superimposed on the satellite data. Fruit crop plantations were located during field visits and their GPS locations were transferred to the satellite images with cadastral maps for unique identification and accurate mapping. The fruit crops in different districts of Gujarat State were identified on the high resolution satellite data based on the planting pattern and tree-crown density. The survey numbers having fruit crop plantations were delineated on the CARTOSAT-1 data. The fruit crop plantation maps of each village were prepared and complied at village and taluka level using open-source Quantum GIS software for preparation of village-level horticultural atlas of Gujarat State. The area under fruit crop plantations was also estimated. The results of this alternate method of mapping fruit crop plantations using high resolution, single-band CARTOSAT-1 panchromatic data on cadastral maps with survey numbers gave very good results for preparation village-level horticultural atlas of Gujarat State. Field survey in different villages was also carried out for accuracy assessment of survey numbers mapped as horticultural plantations.