Impact of the Spatial Resolution of Satellite’s Data for Mapping Land use Land Cover in Karmala Tehsil, Solapur, India

Abstract

Land use and land cover (LULC) classification mapping is important for evaluating, monitoring, protecting and planning for land resources. A key factor in extracting desired information from satellite images is choosing the right the spatial resolution. The scale of a pixel on the ground is known as spatial resolution. A pixel is the smallest ‘dot' that makes up an optical satellite image which defines the level of detail as in image. In this paper estimation of the areal extent of water, built up, barren land, vegetation land and fallow land classes with its classification accuracy were reviewed particularly for January 2013 and November 2016 in Karmala tehsil of Solapur district, India. LULC is implied by different spatial resolution images of Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS), Linear Imaging Self Scanning Sensor (LISS-III), Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Sentinel-2A imageries in QGIS environment while the classification was carried out using the maximum likelihood algorithm (MLA). The classified maps obtained from AWiFS and LISS-III sensors, as well as Sentinel-2A and Landsat-8 OLI data sets, were compared separately.  Spatial analysis depicts that the Kappa coefficient of Sentinal-2A, Landsat-8, LISS III and AWiFS was found 96.96%, 91.64%, 87.30% and 89.36%. Furthermore, overall accuracy of was found to be 99.07%, 94.49%, 89.84% and 94.08% respectively. The accuracy of the classified image with higher spatial resolution (Sentinal-2A) proved more informative than that of lower resolution (AWiFS) sensor. On the response, the finer spatial resolution of Sentinal-2A (10 m) delivered more precise details and enhanced LULC classification accuracy most reliably than the coarser spatial resolution of Landsat-8 (30m), LISS III (23m) and AWiFS (56m) image. A perusal of data revealed that the overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient was found proportionate to spatial resolution of satellite imageries. The higher resolution spatial data also greatly reduces the mixed-pixel problem. The study revealed that the spatial resolution plays an important role and affects classification details and accuracy of LULC level.