Delineation and monitoring of aquaculture areas using multi-temporal space-borne multispectral data

Realizing the impact of aquaculture on environment, a study was taken up to assess the feasibility of generating information on aquaculture in a part of coastal Andhra Pradesh, southern India, using Landsat-TM, SPOT-MLA, IRS-1C/-1D-LISS-III and PAN data. By virtue of higher spatial resolution, the LISS-III and PAN-merged data permitted the detection of individual aquaculture ponds. In addition, shape factor derived from the ratio of area and perimeter of aquaculture ponds has shown promising result in segregation of aquaculture into prawn culture ponds and fish ponds, which is important from environmental health point of view. The area under aquaculture has grown tremendously during the period 1986 to 2001.