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Full catalog/Decadal_LULC_India_1336
Decadal_LULC_India_1336·v1·dataset

How land use across India changed each decade (1985-2005)

Decadal Land Use and Land Cover Classifications across India, 1985, 1995, 2005
land NASA ORNL_CLOUD Level 3 GeoTIFF
In plain English

What it measures. Maps of how land was used and covered across India — cropland, forest, urban areas, and so on — at three decade marks: 1985, 1995, and 2005, at 100-meter detail.

How it's made. Built from a mix of Landsat and Indian Remote Sensing satellite imagery combined with ground surveys and hand interpretation, sorted into standard land-cover categories.

How & where you'd use it. Lets researchers see how India's landscape changed over twenty years — where cities grew, forests shrank, or farmland shifted.

What's measured

LAND SURFACE › LAND USE/LAND COVER › LAND USE/LAND COVER CLASSIFICATION

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1985-01-01 → 2005-12-31
  • Measured byLANDSAT-5 (ETM+, TM) · IRS-1B (LISS-I, LISS-III) · LANDSAT-4 (MSS)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent66.305, 6.71167, 98.932, 36.3219
  • FormatsGeoTIFF
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

This data set provides land use and land cover (LULC) classification products at 100-m resolution for India at decadal intervals for 1985, 1995 and 2005. The data were derived from Landsat 4 and 5 Thematic Mapper (TM), Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), and Multispectral (MSS) data, India Remote Sensing satellites (IRS) Resourcesat Linear Imaging Self-Scanning Sensor-1 or III (LISS-I, LISS-III) data, ground truth surveys, and visual interpretation. The data were classified according to the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) classification scheme.

Get the data

decadal_lulc_india_1336_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="Decadal_LULC_India_1336",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from ORNL_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.