The Study on Land Use Changes of Wenchuan Disaster Area Based on RS and GIS

It has been one year since the Wenchuan earthquake took place. The changes and the law of changes of land use are the reason of the paper. Firstly, the land use classification system had to be built, for the classification system is the foundation of the study. Secondly, the task was the collection and preprocessing of the high resolution RS images before and after the earthquake. Thirdly, the interpretation standard was established for the difference of spectrum feature of the different land use types in RS images. Fourthly, the interpretation and analysis of RS images before and after earthquake were made respectively, and then the land use data of the same region in different times were extracted. At last the change law of different land use types was analyzed. Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) were used adequately during the whole process. For the Remote Sensing methods can provide abundant and real-time information, and Geographic Information System has powerful functions in data processing and spatial analysis, the combination of RS and GIS has inestimable advantages compared with the traditional methods, and is highly effective in analyzing the land use/land cover changes in Wenchuan earthquake area.