Classifying Land Use and Land Cover for Sustainable Urban Planning and Ecosystem Conservation

Abstract

Accurate classification of Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) is fundamental to understanding the spatial distribution of natural and anthropogenic features on the Earth's surface. It provides essential insights for urban planning, agricultural development, environmental monitoring, and resource management. The rapid pace of urbanization—particularly in developing regions—has amplified the demand for timely and precise LULC data. Traditional methods, such as manual interpretation and field surveys, are increasingly inadequate due to limitations in scalability, efficiency, and consistency. This study proposes an automated LULC classification approach that leverages deep learning and remote sensing technologies. Utilizing the ResNet50 deep convolutional neural network and the EuroSAT dataset comprising multispectral satellite imagery, the model is trained to classify land cover types such as urban areas, vegetation, water bodies, agricultural zones, and barren land. The classification process involves tiling satellite images into smaller segments, enabling fine-grained spatial pattern detection and high-resolution mapping. The resulting LULC maps visualize land cover categories with color-coded tiles, facilitating rapid and accurate assessments. This approach demonstrates notable improvements in classification speed, accuracy, and consistency, making it suitable for regular environmental monitoring. By integrating artificial intelligence with satellite imagery, the proposed system offers a scalable solution for informed decision-making in land management, sustainability planning, and urban development. As remote sensing data becomes increasingly accessible and frequent, deep learning-based LULC classification systems will play a pivotal role in addressing contemporary environmental and urban challenges.

Country : India

1 Dr. K.L.S.Soujanya2 Dr. D.V.Latitha Parameswari3 B.Manasvini4 D.Harshavardhini5 T.Abhisathwika6 S.Usharani

  1. Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering (UG), G. Narayanamma Institute of Technology and Sciences for women, Hyderabad, India
  2. Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering (UG), G. Narayanamma Institute of Technology and Sciences for women, Hyderabad, India
  3. Student, Department of Computer Science and Engineering (UG), G. Narayanamma Institute of Technology and Sciences for women, Hyderabad, India
  4. Student, Department of Computer Science and Engineering (UG), G. Narayanamma Institute of Technology and Sciences for women, Hyderabad, India
  5. Student, Department of Computer Science and Engineering (UG), G. Narayanamma Institute of Technology and Sciences for women, Hyderabad, India
  6. Student, Department of Computer Science and Engineering (UG), G. Narayanamma Institute of Technology and Sciences for women, Hyderabad, India

IRJIET, Volume 9, Special Issue of ICCIS-2025 May 2025 pp. 168-171

doi.org/10.47001/IRJIET/2025.ICCIS-202527

References

  1. Helber, P., Bischke, B., Dengel, A., & Borth, D. (2019). EuroSAT: A Novel Dataset and Deep Learning Benchmark for Land Use and Land CoverClassification. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing.
  2. Liu, Y., et al. (2018). Deep Convolutional Neural Networks for Land Cover Classification Using High-Resolution Imagery. Remote Sensing, 10(9), 1456. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10091456.
  3. Goodfellow, I., Bengio, Y., & Courville, A. (2016). Deep Learning. MIT Press.
  4. McDonald, R. I., & LaSalle, M. (2015). Urban ecology and the challenges of modern urbanization. Journal of Urban Ecology, 1(1), 3-15. https://doi.org/10.1093/urbec/urbec018.
  5. Gorelick, N., Hancher, M., Dixon, M., Ilyushchenko, S., Thau, D., & Moore, R. (2017). Google Earth Engine: Planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone. Remote Sensing of Environment, 202, 18–27.
  6. European Space Agency. (2020). Sentinel-2 User Handbook. Retrieved from https://sentinel.esa.int/.
  7. Zhu, X. X., Tuia, D., Mou, L., Xia, G. S., Zhang, L., Xu, F., & Fraundorfer, F. (2017). Deep Learning in Remote Sensing: A Review. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine, 5(3), 8-22.
  8. Turner, M. G., Gardner, R. H., & O'Neill, R. V. (2001). Landscape Ecology in Theory and Practice: Pattern and Process. Springer.
  9. Streamlit Documentation. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://docs.streamlit.io/
  10. Chollet, F. (2017). Xception: Deep Learning with Depthwise Separable Convolutions. Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR).