The use of remote sensing and geographical information systems to create land use and land cover maps and to determine the changes in the land use and land cover over a ten year period

Construction of land use and land cover (LULC) maps was accomplished through the use of remote sensing and GIS. Remote sensing and GIS were used to classify 1990 Landsat 5 and 2000 Landsat 7 Mississippi Gulf Coast imagery into six LULC classes: urban, barren, forested vegetation, non-forested vegetation, marsh, and water. An accuracy assessment was performed on the 2000 LULC map to determine the reliability of the map. Finally, GIS software was used to quantify and illustrate the various LULC conversions that took place over the ten year span of time. The paper concludes that remote sensing and GIS can be used to create LULC maps. It also notes that the maps generated can be used to delineate the changes that take place over time.