Department of Geology, S.V. University, Tirupati - 517 502, India.
The land use/land cover classification of Pageru river basin was done with the help of IRS-1B-LISS II FCC on 1: 50,000 scale by visual interpretation techniques and in conjuction with SOI topo sheets (57 J/6, 7, 10 and 11). Based on the remote sensing data, the land use/land cover patterns were interpreted. The built-up land in the basin area is only 1.02 per cent, while agricuituralland occupies a large area covering 72.92 per cent. The double cropped area is very limited occupying 3.18 per cent only. The area under degraded/open forest occupy only 3.99 per cent and the waste lands occupy 14.42 per cent. The area occupied by surface water bodies is only 1.97 per cent and the grass land/grazing land occupies 2.04 per cent. Even though the agricuiturall and available in the basin area is substantial, the total land could not be brought into cultivation due to meagre surface and groundwater resources present in the catchment area.
