Land use/ land cover mapping for uppar odai sub-watershed, tamil nadu, india

Land use mapping is important for evaluation, management and conservation of natural resources of an area and the knowledge on the existing land use is one of the prime pre-requisites for suggesting better use of land. In this study, three mapping approaches (unsupervised, supervised and GIS post processing) were used to identify, demarcate and map the land use/ Land cover categories in the Uppar Odai Sub-Watershed, Tamil Nadu, India. The following land cover classes were discriminated: Evergreen forest, Deciduous forest, Rabi only, Kharif only, Current fallow, Scrub / Degraded forest and Built-up. The results showed that the cultivated land still covering about 39 % of the Uppar odai sub watershed. While current fallow covers 35 % of the total sub watershed. The Uppar odai sub watershed land cover map confirmed the intensive agricultural activities. This paper also showed that Landsat-like sensors can provide feasible land cover maps of Uppar odai sub watershed, although ancillary data are required to help image interpretation.