Mesoscale model compatible IRS-P6 AWiFS-derived land use/land cover of Indian region

Mesoscale models, in general, are run using the US Geological Survey (USGS) 25-category land use/ land cover (LU/LC) data available at different spatial resolutions. The USGS data over the Indian region suffers from two types of errors, viz. misclassification of LU/LC data and non-availability of up-to-date satellite-based LU/LC data. To improve the accuracy and capture interannual changes better, the LU/LC data generated by the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) using IRS-P6 AWiFS with 56 m basic resolution have been scaled to 5, 2 min and 30 sec resolution which is available at yearly intervals. In the next step, the Indian region of USGS data was replaced with IRS-P6 AWiFS-derived data and made compatible to MM5 and WRF mesoscale models. Thus the resultant product is a global USGS LU/LC data with the Indian region replaced by the information originally derived from AWiFS 56 m resolution imagery, for the years 2004-05 to 2012-13 (nine cycles). This communication describes the required LU/LC data format for MM5 and WRF models and the methodology adopted for compatible product generation. In addition, accuracy of AWiFS-derived LU/LC data converted to 30 sec resolution has also been determined. The present effort will provide the necessary reference for the atmospheric modelling community to address the Indian satellite based model compatible LU/LC data product. These data products are currently available on Bhuvan, the NRSC/ISRO geospatial portal.