APPLICATION OF HIGH RESOLUTION REMOTE SENSING AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM IN DETECTING LANDUSE/LANDCOVER CHANGE: A CASE STUDY FROM

THE MAN Ar SUB BASIN OF ITTIKARA RIVER KOLLAM DISTRICT Vivek, K.S and Sreelekha, C. Centre for Earth Science Studies, Akkulam, Thiruvananthapuram-31.
Abstract Study of landuse landcover change has drawn considerable attention across the globe in recent years due to its wide-ranging environmental impacts. Landuse means relative portions of land put under different use at any given time. Detection of landuse change, therefore, forms part of the th study on land system dynamics. Man Ar a 5 order basin forms a part of the Ittikara drainage basin. It 2 has an area of 94.4 km and lies within the latitudes N 849'32 to 855 and longitudes E 7654 56 38 to 772 . The river originates from Madathara hills at an altitude of 240 m above MSL. 35 Physiographically, the Man Ar falls in the highland region. The major rock type found in this area is Khondalite. Man Ar flows in a straight NW-SE alignment following a prominent lineament indicating tectonic influence. Time series landuse maps were prepared from Survey of India toposheets of 1967 (1:50,000) and 1989 (1:25,000) as well as from high resolution PAN image (IRS IC, 1999, 1:25,000 scale). Visual interpretation of PAN image was done and different landuse categories were identified and compared with SOI toposheet. The results were confirmed through detailed field checking. In order to elucidate the landuse change that has taken place, a landuse change map (1989-2002) of the study area was generated by overlaying landuse maps of 1989 on to that of 2002 using GIS. The usage of PAN image and GIS for integrating various thematic maps helped in better understanding of the landuse dynamics of Man-Ar basin. INTRODUCTION

Landuse means the relative portions of land put under different use at any given time. Static land becomes highly mobile through uses. Man Ar a 5 order basin with 94.40 km area forms a part of the Ittikara drainage basin. It falls under the tropical rain forest region of Kerala. The river originates from the Madathara hills at an elevation of 240 m above MSL. Physiographically, Man Ar falls in the highland region with its rich canopy of tropical rain forest. The Man Ar basin had more than 50% of its area under forest cover which got depleted over the years. This point will be discussed in detail later. Forests play a vital role in regulating a sustained flow of water to the streams, helps in the growth of trees, prevents soil erosion etc. (Jain and Chaudhry, 2003). So landuse and landcover changes within the forest area has an important bearing on the above forest dynamics. The landuse practices of an area is closely linked to the topography, soil conditions, climate and finally the socio-economic practices of the area. The present study area of Man Ar basin is no exception to this.
th 2

The present study was carried out with the objective of (i) preparing landuse maps from SOI toposheets (1967 and 1989), and satellite image (PAN IRS 1C) and (ii) the impact of the changes in landuse in the forest cover. The landuse changes were analysed and studied in GIS environment. STUDY AREA

Man Ar sub-basin forms a part of the Ittikara drainage basin. It lies between latitudes N 8 49 and longitude E76 54 -77 2 . It is also the provenance zone of the Ittikara river. This 32 38 55 basin is drained by Man Ar and Eravail Thodu. The major rock type found in the basin is khondalite (Soman, 2002). This terrain is popularly known as the Kerala Khondalite Belt (KKB) or Ponmudi unit or the Cherian belt. The Man Ar flows in a straight NW-SE alignment following a prominent lineament (Soman, 2002). The basin is bounded by isolated hillocks, having average elevations of 100-300 m. It is characterized by steep slopes and NW-SE trending ridges and very narrow steep valleys. Rocky cliffs and escarpment are observed in many places. The presence of planation surfaces in the basin is indicative of the general denudational process of highland terrain. METHODOLOGY
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Landuse maps were prepared from Survey of India toposheets of 1967 (1:50000) and 1989 (1:25,000) as well as from PAN image (IRS 1C 1999, 1:25000 scale). Visual interpretation of PAN image was done and different landuse units were identified and compared with SOI toposheets. Timeseries analysis helped in delineating the changes taken place over time. Visual interpretation of the PAN image was done by following the basic visual interpretation techniques. Since the PAN image was taken in 1999 the changes that had taken place after 1999 have been corrected and added. The features having comparable size, shape, pattern and site were easily identified. The presence of high tension electric lines which appear in the 1989 toposheet could be identified in the image also. This was possible because of the trend it follows. Similarly the pattern exhibited by rock out crops can also be identified in the image. Here it should be noted that the exhibited tone is light/ white indicating high reflectance (Chattopadhyay and Chattopadhyay, 1989).

After the basic visual interpretation criteria (tone, texture etc.) were deciphered and established, the surrounding areas were taken up for interpretation. This is done by taking the tone and texture of the image into consideration. Areas of low reflectance appeared as dark grey tones while higher reflectance areas in light tones. Texture is the frequency of the tonal change on the image. The texture gives rough or smooth appearance of the image. Though both green grass and tree crowns have similar tone, tree crowns will have coarser and rough texture compared to grass.

Rubber plantations show a very dark tone (George, 2003). This is because rubber has a very dense or close canopy compared to other trees and so the reflectance is naturally low. Acacia-Manjium also has a good canopy cover but its stem is elongated and the branching is also limited. It should be noted that the outer boundaries of all plantations have a definite geometric shape. In other words the boundary of these plantations follow more or less straight line and looking at this shape one can conclude that the feature is a plantation. deciphered by its unique tone and texture. An image interpretation key was prepared and the landuse units were designated accordingly. All the maps were field verified and finalised. Landuse maps were digitized using Arc Info 3.5.1 software and overlayed to work out the changes. Area coverage under each landuse category in all the three years had been computed and necessary tables were prepared. GIS is used to integrate all the maps and the procedure followed is given below (Fig. 1). RS data Rubber plantations wherever it appears can be easily

Interpretation

Correspondence with toposheets

Pre-field map Field verification

Final landuse map

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GIS operation

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Fig. 1 Integration of interpreted maps using GIS.

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Poligonisation

Editing

Digitization

Overlaying

GIS output

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RESULT AND DISCUSSION

The landuse categories increased from five in 1967 to eleven in 2002 (Table 1). The major landuse categories in 1967 were paddy, settlement with mixed tree crops, rubber, open scrub and forest. While in 1989 they were paddy, settlement with mixed tree crops, rubber, oil palm, eucalyptus, acacia-manjium, acacia and forest and the landuse categories in 2002 are Paddy, reclaimed area, built-up area, Settlement with mixed tree crops, Settlement (agglomerated), Rubber, Oil palm, Acaciamanjium, Forest, Eucalyptus, Open scrub (Figs. 2, 3 & 4).

TABLE 1 LANDUSE CATEGORIES AND AREAL EXTENT-MAN AR. Landuse categories Paddy Reclaimed area Built-up area Settlement with mixed tree crops Settlement (agglomerated) Rubber Oil palm Eucalyptus Acacia-manjium Acacia Forest Open scrub/open jungle/grassland TOTAL 1967 Areal In 2 extent (km ) per cent 5.90 6.25 1989 Areal In 2 extent (km ) per cent 4.53 4.80 2002 Areal In 2 extent (km ) per cent 5.01 5.31 3.81 4.04 3.47 3.68 22.92 24.28 0.22 9.60 10.17 11.10 13.50 1.95 4.50 0.02 33.10 11.75 14.30 2.05 4.75 0.10 35.05 10.00 12.91 1.79 4.50 29.66 0.09 94.38 0.25 10.60 12.98 1.90 4.77 32.10 0.09 100.00

27.38

29.02

25.68

27.20

48.95 2.55 94.38

51.86 2.70 100.00

94.38

100.00

It may be noted from the Table 1 that area under forest cover has decreased steadily from 1967 to 2002. The difference in area of 18 km has been redistributed to other landuse categories. Similarly the area under settlement with mixed tree crops and paddy had also decreased during this period and were distributed elsewhere. Area under paddy had come down gradually from 5.9 km to 4.53 km and finally it increased to 5.01 km in 2002. The coverage under settlement with mixed tree crops had come down from 27.38 km in 1967 to 25.68 km in 1989 and finally to 22.92 km in 2002; a decrease of 16.28% have been computed. The area under forest cover had gone down from 48.95 km in 1967 to 29.66 km in 2002 with a decrease of 38% while the area under rubber increased from 9.6 km in 1967 to 11.1 km in 1989 and finally to 10 km in 2002 having an areal growth of only 4%. Landuse change within the forest area
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

The major changes marked within the forest area are the conversion of forest land to oil palm, rubber, eucalyptus, manjium, and settlement with mixed tree crops (Fig. 5). The changes occurred in paddy lands are the gradual decrease in area of paddy due to reclamation of paddy lands. A landuse change matrix had been worked out to understand the nature of landuse conversion within the forested area (Table 2). The change in forest cover as recorded in this sub-basin followed the trend found for the state as a whole. Kerala had only 14% of her geographical area under forest cover (Chattopadhyay, et. al., 1984). Compared to the state average this basin has higher forest cover.

However, given the location of the sub-basin within the highland this coverage of 30 percent can be considered as minimum. Further, deforestation needs to be curbed to maintain the ecosystem of the sub-basin. TABLE 2 LANDUSE CONVERSION MATRIX OF MAN AR. Landuse category Forest Settlement with mixed tree crops Oil palm Rubber Eucalyptus Open scrub Acacia manjium Total Year 1988-89 33.10 0.75 13.55 0.05 1.95

1966-67 48.95 0.45

49.40

49.40

2002 29.66 1.90 12.91 1.16 2.36 0.08 1.33 49.40

1989

Forest

SMT

Oil palm

Rubber

Eucalyptus

Open scrub 0.08

Acacia Manjium 1.33

1989 (Total) 33.10 0.75 13.55 0.05 1.95

Forest SMT Oil palm Rubber Eucalyptus Open scrub Acacia Manjium 2002 Total

30.30 0.75 1.15

0.65 12.25

0.72 0.14 0.05 0.19

1.76

30.30

1.90

12.90

1.14

1.76

0.08

1.33

49.40

CONCLUSION

It has emerged from this study that the basin as a whole and its forest cover in particular faces tremendous pressure due to indiscriminate human interventions. Activities like deforestation (decrease of 38%), aforestation (plantation crops like rubber and forest plantation crops like oil palm, acacia manjium, eucalyptus, etc) and the re-emergence of open scrub at the expense of forest have altered the basic character of the basin. The use of PAN image and GIS for integrating various thematic maps helped in the better understanding of the landuse dynamics of the basin.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This paper forms part of a project supported by Central Statistical Organisation (CSO), Government of India. The authors are grateful to Dr.M.Baba, Director, CESS for kind permission to prepare this paper. Thanks are due to Dr. K. Soman, Head, RAD for extending facilities to prepare this paper. The authors wish to express their sincere gratitude to Dr.Srikumar Chattopadhyay for his encouragement, guidance and his constructive criticisms. The authors wish to thank Mrs. Mahamaya Chattopadhyay for her useful suggestions. Typographical works done by Ms. Reema Rani.M.V. is duly acknowledged. Reference Reddy Anji, M. (2003). Textbook of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems. pp. 21-23. George Joseph. (2003). Fundamentals of Remote Sensing, pp. 317-319. Jain, S.K. and Anju Chaudhry. (2003). Snow and Forest cover assessment of Uttaranchal State using IRS 1C WiFS Data, Journal of Indian Society of Remote Sensing, pp. 91-92. Soman, K. (2002). Geology of Kerala, pp. 70 and pp. 151-153. Chattopadhyay Srikumar, Velayutham, S. and Salim, M.B. (1984). Trends of Deforestation in Kerala, Mem. 5, J. Geol. Soc. of India. Chattopadhyay Srikumar and Chattopadhyay Mahamaya (1989). Application of Remote Sensing in Terrain Analysis: A Case Study of the Wayanad Plateau, Kerala, India. Int. J. Remote Sensing, 1989, Vol. 10, No. 6, pp. 1078.