This paper reports the results of a case study undertaken in the Chilika catchment area, located at the east coast of India, and focuses on the assessment of: (1) spatial distribution of land use/land cover patterns, and (2) change detection using IRS 1A LISS-I of April 1989 and IRS 1D LISS-III of May 2002. The change in the built-up area is 3.006 km² from 1989 to 2002. The agricultural land has been increased by 5.963 km² during the 13 years. The total forest cover was estimated to be 348.128 km² in the year 1989, and 350.081 km² in the year 2002. Change in the wastelands, mostly scrublands, has shown a decreasing trend. In the Chilika catchment area, there has been a decrease of 27.025 km² in the scrublands due to agriculture and plantation. The principal observation reveals that there is a positive sign for the restoration of the Chilika lagoon.

Human use of land resources in an unplanned and unsustainable manner has resulted in substantial landscape modification. Very few areas can still be considered as in their natural conditions. Orbital monitoring and mapping of landscape from space still remains unaddressed in identifying many visual attributes of qualitative nature. To generate multi-scale baseline information on Land Use and Cover Change (LUCC), remote sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS) technologies are regarded as the most efficient sampling tools. In order to develop an LUCC scenario, historical data has its own importance. Priority concern in these analyses is the documentation of spatial as well as temporal changes of visual attributes of landscape. In this regard, European land resources database has been generated using multitemporal satellite data, viz., Landsat MSS of the early 1970s, Landsat TM of the early 1980s and Landsat TM and SPOT data of the early 1990s (LUCC Report, 1997). All remotely sensed images primarily capture the spatial categories of land cover and not of land practice. According to a report by FAO (1997), land use refers to man's activities and various uses which are carried on a certain land cover type, while land cover refers to biophysical cover such as natural vegetation, water bodies, rocks and soils on the earth's surface.

Landscape Modification in Chilika Lagoon Area, East Coast of India: A Remote Sensing and GIS-based Study, landscape, catchment, spatial, resources, scrublands, activities, categories, agricultural, database, distribution, documentation, estimated, generate, Geographical, lagoon, LISSIII, assessment, monitoring, modification, multitemporal, Orbital, plantation, qualitative