Land cover change mapping using high resolution satellites and unmanned aerial vehicle

Abstract

Cameron Highlands is increasingly gaining popularity as a tourist attraction both locally and internationally. Unfortunately, due to the high demand of agricultural products and construction of new hotels and settlements, the area is now characterized by land scarcity. This research aims to assess the use of high resolution satellites images and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in detecting land use and land cover changes for a period of 12 years. The high-resolution satellite images of IKONOS and QuickBird were used together with a fixed wing Helang UAV. The object based classification method was applied to classify the images into seven land cover classes. Results indicate that land cover changes were detected in forest areas with a decrease from 196.1 hectares to 180.7 hectares and to 160.1 hectares from 2001 to 2007 and to 2013 respectively. Inversely, the built up areas increased from 47.8 hectares to 58.5 hectares and to 63.4 hectares from 2001 to 2007 and to 2013 respectively. During the same periods, there were slight increases in agriculture and grassland; the water body areas remained almost unchanged while in the bare soil areas there are slightly non-uniform changes. A large landslide area was detected in the UAV image.