This chapter explores the ability of remote sensing and GIS technology for the preparation of land use land cover plan in an effective manner. It is an established fact that remote sensing products are being widely used for land use and land cover products to facilitate their stakeholders to provide them cost effective and reproducible mechanism to extract meaningful information for the development of infrastructure in particular region at any scale. Remote sensing has produced different high resolution datasets that may be convert into fruitful products by using recently developed image processing techniques. India is vast country, having natural resources as land resources which needs reallocation as per future demands. Present legislation and regulation are hardly enough for sustainable development of land resources.
Top1. Introduction
A report was published by the Brunt Land Commission titled as “Our Common Future” to establish a link between economic development and environmental stability. In this way, sustainable development refers to “Development that meets the needs of present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. It is an organized principle that delivers natural resources and ecosystem services for the economic development of human beings Rachel (2015), Brodhag & Taliere (2006) and UNGA (1987).
The Economist- Rene Passet (1979) proposed a three sphere framework as “ecology, economy and equity”. However, some other workers regarded it as four dimensional frame work which includes politics and culture.
Figure 1. Different components of sustainable development
1.1 Aims and Objectives
The primary objective of land use planning is to provide an efficient mechanism for the allocation of land resources for sustainable utilization, acquisition and disposition at desired scale. Efficient land use planning fecilitates their stake holders for better decision making and sustainable utilization of resources. Further, it is aimed to demonstrate the utility of remote sensing and GIS in assessment, analysis and monitoring the land use planning and resources. For this purpose, different techniques of image analysis have been discussed in the later part of this chapter such as visual image interpretation, digital image interpretation to predict the changes as well as future directions of development in terms of land use planning and technology itself.
Land use and land cover of India has been exemplified for expressing the utility of remote sensing and GIS technology. It is evident that India is a vast country and scored second position in terms of population, contained huge diversity in the form of resources as well as their utilization for different purposes.
1.2 Land Use Planning and Its Importance
Land use planning is attributed to the reasonable rationing between environmental components and socio-economic demands to fulfill the future needs of the community. It is an important resource that is evaluated to predict the inherent capabilities of land in order to support different (specific) uses of it for a long period of time without decay (Bandyopadhyay et al., 2009). The importance of land use planning is witnessed by the frequency of analysis and evolution of analyzing techniques (conventional to remote sensing techniques) as well as the demand for land use planning to meet the future needs of human-being. For example, integrated watershed management practices have been implemented worldwide to demarcate the properties of land, the position of land categories, and its usage by many workers such as Durbude and Venkatesh (2004).
Remote sensing provides a cost effective and efficient way of land use planning at various scales. This technology can be utilized for rebuilding of an integrated land use planning policy, which will be essential for improving the methods and techniques for sustainable development and securing long-term goals.
Land use planning may be achieved through several objectives:
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Inventory of land resources for specific use
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Collection of information regarding change
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Evaluation of alternative strategies for satisfying long-term goals
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Preparation of policies to achieve different objectives
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Implementation and adoption on policies on the ground
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Monitoring and continuous assessment of implemented policies
For achieving objectives above, remote sensing and GIS can be used for planning at many levels. This is a state of the art technology which is widely used for different purposes including land use and land cover planning. Land use planning is the key prerequisite for the sustainable development of land resources. It has gained considerable space among stakeholders as a subject of policy discussion at the national level. Governments, communities, and other stakeholders including planners, managers, and real state players are being forced to recognize the significance of not only rationalizing the use of land. However, the progress is to slow to bridge the gap between current unscientific development and sustainable development for future generations (Lindgren, 1985; Silberstein & Maser, 2014).