Wastelands Atlas of India by National Remote Sensing Centre and Ministry of Rural Development (2010)

Mapping the wastelands in India

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08 Nov 2010, 5:16 pm

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Wastelands Atlas of India - 2010

The three sets of Wastelands Atlas of India by NRSC comprise -

Wastelands Atlas of India (2000):

The NRSC had created reliable database in the form of a Wastelands Atlas showing the spatial distribution and district-wise area under wasteland under the National Wastelands Inventory Project (NWIP-2000) using satellite data of different periods (1986 – 2000). Wastelands mapping was carried out in different phases considering the critically-affected districts on priority. A 13-fold wastelands classification system was adopted for mapping wastelands at 1:50,000 scale for entire country in five phases using Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) IRS LISS II and IRS 1C LISS III data. An estimated 63.85 M ha of land covering 20.17% of total geographical area of the country were mapped as wastelands.

Wastelands Atlas of India (2005):

In order to update the information on severity of degradation which helps in wasteland reclamation programmes, DoLR initiated a project titled “National Wasteland Updation Project” in collaboration with NRSC, during 2003. Using Rabi season IRS LISS III of 2003, the status of wastelands with 28 categories was mapped. According to these estimates, wastelands accounted for 55.64 million ha. The collateral data and ancillary information like watershed boundaries, village boundaries and base details such as settlement locations, transport network, drainage, notified forest boundaries are organized in different layers using standard codification system. The results are published as a National Atlas titled ‘Wasteland Atlas of India – 2005‘, providing district level information.

These changes in spatial extent of wastelands could be attributed to (i) non-uniform usage of satellite datasets (single season vs. three season); (ii) Differences in the datum and projection of satellite data of the two periods; (iii) inconsistencies in definition and number of categories of wastelands; and (iv) implementation of reclamation programs on wastelands by the Ministry of Rural Development and other Central and State Government agencies.

Apart from Department of Land Resources, this Atlas is being consulted by various user government departments and non-governmental organizations extensively for implementing various development programmes.

Download the complete Wastelands Atlas of India - Department of Land Resources (2010).

Download the state-wise chapters below:

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Wastelands_Atlas_of_India_Madhya_Pradesh_DoLR_2010.pdf

Wastelands Atlas of India by National Remote Sensing Centre and Ministry of Rural Development (2010)

Wastelands Atlas of India (2000):

Wastelands Atlas of India (2005):

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