Time-Series analysis of MODIS NDVI data along with ancillary data for Land use/Land cover mapping of Uttarakhand

Abstract. Land use and land cover plays an important role in biogeochemical cycles, global climate and seasonal changes. Mapping land use and land cover at various spatial and temporal scales is thus required. Reliable and up to date land use/land cover data is of prime importance for Uttarakhand, which houses twelve national parks and wildlife sanctuaries and also has a vast potential in tourism sector. The research is aimed at mapping the land use/land cover for Uttarakhand state of India using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data for the year 2010. The study also incorporated smoothening of time-series plots using filtering techniques, which helped in identifying phenological characteristics of various land cover types. Multi temporal Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data for the year 2010 was used for mapping the Land use/land cover at 250m coarse resolution. A total of 23 images covering a single year were layer stacked and 150 clusters were generated using unsupervised classification (ISODATA) on the yearly composite. To identify different types of land cover classes, the temporal pattern (or) phenological information observed from the MODIS (MOD13Q1) NDVI, elevation data from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), MODIS water mask (MOD44W), Nighttime Lights Time Series data from Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS) data were used. Final map product is generated by adopting hybrid classification approach, which resulted in detailed and accurate land use and land cover map.