Land Use and Land Cover Mapping for Catchment Area Afforestation A case study of East Khasi Hills District

Abstract

The aim of this study is to produce a land use and land cover map for accessing the catchment area for afforestation purposes using remote sensing data and geographic information system. In this study, land use land cover in East Khasi Hills District was carried out to map the forest cover, other land use land cover classes and potential afforestation sites. IRS LISS IV data and Google Earth high resolution images have been used and visual image analysis technique has been employed to do the land use land cover mapping. The study area covers 2813.05 sq. km and consists of mosaic of land use and land cover features. These are classified into eight categories: settlements, water bodies, agricultural land, barren land, grassland, culturable waste land or scrub land, open forest, dense forest. Therefore culturable barren land has been identified as the potential area for afforestation in the catchments. It has been assessed that area under culturable barren land which may be potential afforestation sites is 124.93 sq km which is 4.44% of the total geographical area of the district.