A study on landuse and landcover classification using microwave data in Joida taluk of Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka

Abstract

The study has been conducted for land use and land cover classification by using SAR data. The study included examining of ALOS 2 PALSAR L- band quad pol (HH, HV, VH and VV) SAR data for LULC classification. The SAR data was pre-processed first which included multilook, radiometric calibration, geometric correction, speckle filtering, SAR Polarimetry and decomposition. For land use land cover classification of ALOS-2-PALSAR data sets, the supervised Random forest classifier was used. Training samples were selected with the help of ground truth data. The area was classified under 7 different classes such as dense forest, moderate dense forest, scrub/sparse forest, plantation, agriculture, water body, and settlements. Among them the highest area was covered by dense forest (108647ha) followed by horticulture plantation (57822 ha) and scrub/Sparse forest (49238 ha) and lowest area was covered by moderate dense forest (11589 ha). Accuracy assessment was performed after classification. The overall accuracy of SAR data was 80.36% and Kappa Coefficient was 0.76. Based on SAR backscatter reflectance such as single, double, and volumetric scattering mechanism different land use classes were identified.