Land Use And Land Cover (LULC) Information: Case Study

Land use and land cover (LULC) information are desired by land managers, government agencies, municipalities, environmentalists and other professional practitioners to facilitate decision-making processes and also to equip the understanding of the interactions between the humans and their surrounding environment (Prakasam, 2010; Yadav, et al., 2010). LULC information is presently in great demand particularly due to the pressures of global population growth as it is necessary for the selection, planning and implementation of intervention efforts to meet the increasing human needs and welfare (Yadav et al., 2012). Remote sensing and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technologies provide effective and efficient methods to collect such required
The two imagery packages chosen for this study are of “moderate resolutions” and are understood as a balance between the advantages of multispectral resolution satellite data and hyperspectral data (Mutanga et al., 2012). The SPOT-6 data is freely available to government and academic institutions in South Africa and other African countries through the South African National Space Agency (SANSA), through the SPOT Data Direct Receiving Station Supply, Reception and Distribution (DRS) agreement which they signed with the Airbus Defence and Space Systems Data (van Zwieten, 2014), on the other hand, the WorldView-2 is available at a price. Therefore, this study also sought to understand if it is advisable for LULC mappers from across the continent to use the freely available SPOT data or to go on procure the higher resolution data such as WorldView-2 when seeking to map mountainous
LULC types as components of landscapes present some difficulties when being distinguished from a remote sensing perspective, particularly on an uneven terrain. The complexities characterising LULC dynamics on uneven terrains (mountainous landscapes) are due to the variations in terms of the distribution elements such as rain and sunlight as a result of the inconsistencies of landscape altitudes, slope and aspect leading to heterogeneity of vegetation and other components of the ecosystem (Salman et al., 2002; Wondie et al.,