Author(s)

Sophia S. Rwanga^1,2*, J. M. Ndambuki³

¹Department of Civil Engineering, Tshwane University Technology, Pretoria, South Africa.
²Department of Civil Engineering, Vaal University of Technology, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa.
³Department of Civil Engineering, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa.

Remote sensing is one of the tool which is very important for the production of Land use and land cover maps through a process called image classification. For the image classification process to be successfully, several factors should be considered including availability of quality Landsat imagery and secondary data, a precise classification process and user’s experiences and expertise of the procedures. The objective of this research was to classify and map land-use/land-cover of the study area using remote sensing and Geospatial Information System (GIS) techniques. This research includes two sections (1) Landuse/Landcover (LULC) classification and (2) accuracy assessment. In this study supervised classification was performed using Non Parametric Rule. The major LULC classified were agriculture (65.0%), water body (4.0%), and built up areas (18.3%), mixed forest (5.2%), shrubs (7.0%), and Barren/bare land (0.5%). The study had an overall classification accuracy of 81.7% and kappa coefficient (K) of 0.722. The kappa coefficient is rated as substantial and hence the classified image found to be fit for further research. This study present essential source of information whereby planners and decision makers can use to sustainably plan the environment.

Accuracy assessment, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Land Use Land Cover (LULC), Remote Sensing

Rwanga, S. and Ndambuki, J. (2017) Accuracy Assessment of Land Use/Land Cover Classification Using Remote Sensing and GIS. International Journal of Geosciences, 8, 611-622. doi: 10.4236/ijg.2017.84033.