Desertification Change Analysis in Siwalik Hills of Haryana Using Geo-informatics

Abstract. Desertification constitutes one of the international environment problems whose global importance has been recognized by the international community. Desertification is a problem that affects a number of regions of the world in the developed and developing countries. Desertification is even more closely associated with the development process insofar as it impacts on peoples livelihoods much more directly than other environmental problem. One of the central challenges of environment management in the coming years, the loss of productive land is of major concern in a world where hundreds millions of individuals already go hungry today. Availability of remote sensing data from earth observation satellite and GIS techniques has made it convenient to map and monitor land use /land cover of desertification areas. In the present study Desertification Change analysis in Panchkula district Haryana was carried out by using LISS-III satellite data of 2002 and 2011. The main objective of the study was to monitor the changes in degraded lands in the district. Onscreen digitization technique was followed to interpret the satellite data. The two dates maps were overlaid and changes in area under various degraded lands were calculated. It was observed that Total geographical area of under investigation is 1021.86 sq. km.