Assessment of Land Use/Land Cover Using Geospatial Techniques in a Semi-arid Region of Madhya Pradesh, India

The Earth's land cover characteristics and its use are key variables in global change. The society today is already in the mainstream of another revolution - the information revolution. This brings enormous changes to life and living, providing new approaches: how to advance the frontiers of previous revolutions particularly those of earth resources mapping and monitoring. Over the last few decades, there has been a significant change on land use and land cover (LULC) across the globe due to the climatic changes and over demand of the growing inhabitants. Semi-arid regions are undergoing severe stresses due to the combined effects of growing population and climate change (Mukherjee et al., 2009). In the last three decades, the technologies and methods of remote sensing have progressed significantly. Now a days remote sensing data, along with increased resolution from satellite platforms, makes these technology appear poised to make better impact on land resource management initiatives involved in monitoring LULC mapping and change detection at varying spatial ranges (Singh et al., 2010; Thakur, 2010). Remote sensing technology offers collection and analysis of data from ground-based, space and Earth-orbiting platforms, with linkages to Global Positioning System (GPS) and geographic information system (GIS) data with promising modelling capabilities (Franklin, 2001; Thakur et al., 2010). This has made remote sensing valuable for land cover and land use information.