Semi-automatic delineation of badlands using contrast in vegetation activity: a case study in the lower Chambal valley,India |
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| Authors: | V Ranga A Van Rompaey J Poesen SN Mohapatra P Pani |
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| Institution: | 1. Division of Geography, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Catholic University Leuven, Heverlee, Belgium;2. Centre of Remote Sensing &3. GIS, School of Studies in Earth Science, Jiwaji University, Gwalior, India;4. Centre of Remote Sensing &5. Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India |
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| Abstract: | Population growth worldwide leads to an increasing pressure on the land. Recent studies reported that many areas covered by badlands are decreasing because parts of badlands are being levelled and converted into arable land. It is important to monitor these changes for environmental planning. This paper proposes a remote-sensing-based detection method which allows mapping of badland dynamics based on seasonal vegetation changes in the lower Chambal valley, India. Supervised classification was applied on three Landsat (Thematic Mapper) images, from 3 different seasons; January (winter), April (summer) and October (post-monsoon). Different band selection methods were applied to get the best classification. Validation was done by ground referencing and a GeoEye-1 satellite image. The image from January performed best with overall accuracy of 87% and 0.69 of kappa. This method opens the possibilities of using semi-automatic classification for the Chambal badlands which is so far mapped with manual interpretations only. |
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| Keywords: | NDVI time series analysis badlands image classification lower Chambal valley |
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