A Geospatial Study to Assess the Land Use Land Cover of Mehao Wildlife Sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh, India

Abstract

There is inadequate knowledge of the natural resources in the remote inaccessible protected areas of North East Region (NER) of India. Arunachal Pradesh, which is one of the state in NER is extremely rich in biodiversity and forms a part of the biodiversity hotspots in the Eastern Himalayas. However its biodiversity is under threat due to various factors like infrastructure development, changing socio-economic pattern and other external pressures. Therefore the need of the hour is to map the current biodiversity of the area as well as potential threats in order to conserve the natural resources and create detailed spatial databases. The objective of the present study is to map the land use land cover (LULC) of Mehao Wildlife Sanctuary (WLS) situated in Arunachal Pradesh using Remote Sensing and GIS technology. IRS LISS III satellite image has been used to extract LULC, vegetation maps using hybrid classification. Further a spatial database of the WLS was created which includes contour, drainage, spot height and elevation distribution maps.