Assessment of Quality of Life in Uttarakhand, India using geospatial techniques

Abstract

Uttarakhand state, located in northern India, has a total geographic area of 51,125km². Ninety-three per cent of the state is mountainous whereas 64% is forested area, and the cities of the region has different living standards. The Quality of Life (QOL) is assessed in the state by using remote sensing-derived parameters along with the census data warehouse in geospatial environment. The study develops a methodology to measure the QOL in the state using geospatial techniques. The study addresses use of Landsat MSS satellite imagery to estimate environmental parameters like vegetation fraction, impervious surface fraction and land surface temperature. Census of India details were integrated along with remote sensing data-derived parameters in the GIS environment. Factor analysis was conducted to interpret the input parameters for the assessment of QOL index. In this process, three indices were generated (crowdedness, greenness and economic indices). These indices were further processed to estimate the overall QOL index of Uttarakhand. All types of spatial maps were published in the distributed environment using open source internet GIS technologies.

Keywords:

• QOL
• Landsat
• remote sensing
• internet GIS