Use plan; Remote sensing.

Land development and its consequent use has a large impact on its immediate environment and sustainability. Hence, land use planning forms an important core component in development programmes of hilly areas for evolving effective plans at regional level. Hilly terrains offer a lot of challenges in land use planning due to their intricate bio-physical and socio-economic setup. Hence, the integration of scientific input through advanced techniques are required. The north-eastern part of India are well known for its inherent practice of shifting cultivation which have rendered considerable destruction to both land resources and environment. There is a necessity to develop proper strategies or land use plans which can counteract these detrimental effects on environment, and at the same time improve productivity of land. This study deals with the application of remote sensing and GIS for land use planning in Lawngtlai district of Mizoram, India. Indian Remote Sensing satellite data (LISS-III and Cartosat-I) has been used for generating various GIS layers like land use, slope, soil, drainage, etc. Integration of these with collected ground data resulted in generation of a comprehensive land use plan for the study area. The analysis in a GIS system helped in bringing out maps and statistics with constructive options for alternate land use plans which are both productive and sustainable. This information will be very useful at district level to plan according to the schemes and resources available