Land use planning of southern part of Sonbhadra District, U.P., using Remote Sensing Techniques

Of late, growing population pressure and human activities are increasing the demand on the limited land resources, both for agricultural and other land uses. To meet this unprecedented demand of land for various pursuits, reliable and comprehensive information on the spatial distribution of land use/land cover categories and their status under the present usage is a prerequisite for planning, utilisation and management of land resources of the region.

Precisely, for this very reason the present study, through visual interpretation, aims to obtain the information on the status of land resources in the region south of the River Son, Sonbhadra District, U.P. Remote Sensing data in the form of FCC on 1:50,000 of 1RS-1A (LISS-II) for the entire study area for the period of Feb. 1991 (consisting of 14 scenes) have been used in the study. Maps on various themes, viz, Land Use/Land Cover, Geomorphic Units, Soils, Ground Water Potential, and Environmental Degradation have been generated using aforementioned satellite data coupled with ground truth. All these maps were critically evaluated and the problem areas were identified and land use plan has been suggested for the overall development of the study area. The present study highlights the great merit of recording land use pattern on maps are that each parcel of land can be precisely located and the aerial relationships of different uses analysed in a way that is not possible with a variety of other methods, viz. statistical data, etc., often collected for quite different purposes.