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Coastal change Danube Delta change detectionOil spillsDeforestation Bardia National ParkCongo River BasinKameng-Sonitpur Elephant ReserveKilimanjaroRondoniaShillong and GuwahatiIce Antarctica 2003Climate change and glaciersGlacier analysis using radar imageryGlacial retreat in the AlpsGlacier Ice FlowMonitoring of glaciers in the HimalayasRemote sensing of ice and snowUrbanisation CairoCity of KathmanduCórdobaHimalayasKathmandu ValleyLagosVegetation Annapurna Conservation AreaLost in the AndesNgorongoro Conservation AreaNiger Inland DeltaVegetation in South America
| | | | | | | Landscape units of Nepal
This exercise requires the use of LEOWorks.
In this first exercise we will learn more about the study area and its geographical features.Download the necessary data from Himalayas_env1.zip.
Open LEOWorks and open the image himalaya.tif from your work directory. This image is a mosaic of several Landsat scenes, and shows the full extension of the Himalayan mountain range in Nepal. It has a spatial resolution of 456 m.
From a satellite image it is often quite difficult to see national boundaries between different countries. In the LEOWorks main toolbar, click on the GIS button and the GIS-tool window will appear. Click File>Open Theme and select the file Nepal_boundary.shp. The program will ask you to select a transformation method. Select the following options:
- Transformation Method: Arbitrary
- Load mode: Map Based
You will now see that the boundary is overlaid on the satellite image.
You may use the GIS Tool from the image window: Edit>Properties, in order to change the colour of the polygon and its size.
As you already learned in the background chapters, Nepal can be divided into several landscape units. See the map below which shows the spatial distribution of the landscape units:
- Terai - lowland plain
- Siwalik – southern hills
- Middle Mountain – central shallow hill zone
- High Mountain – steep mountainous zone
- Himalaya – high elevation zone
Landscape units of Nepal
1. Carefully inspect the image with respect to colour and topography, and identify the 5 landscape units as described above.
2. Use the Annotation tool in LEOWorks to indicate them by entering the 5 terms in the right position.
3. Describe each of the 5 landscape units with respect to the apparent colour in the satellite image, the topography, and the land cover, resp. the land use.
Go to the internet, for example Google Earth, and find, for each unit, a photograph showing the landscape and perhaps also the people living there.
4. Summarise your findings in a table as the one shown below.
| Landscape Unit | Colours in the image | Description of topography | Land cover/ Land use | Photograph(s) | | Terai | | | | | | Siwalik | | | | | | Middle mountain | | | | | | High mountain | | | | | | Himalaya | | | | |
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| | Himalayas Environmental problems in the HimalayasUrbanisationThe Himalayan regionMountain ecosystemsNepal areaTibet areaExercises Himalaya - WorksheetUrbanisation – 40 years of urban development of LhasaUrbanisation – Detection by means of delineation of the city perimeterLandslide detection in Langtang HimalLinks Further ReadingEduspace - Software LEOWorks 3Eduspace - Download Himalayas_env1.zipHimalayas_env2.zipHimalayas_env3.zipHimalayas_env4.zipEduspace - Download MERIS images of Kathmandu valley (zip file)Eduspace - Software LEOWorks 3ArcExplorer
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