An Approach of Remote Sensing and GIS for the Delineation of Lineaments in the Suru Valley (Ladakh-Himalayas)

An attempt has been made to map a high resolution lineament map of Suru valley (Ladakh) using remote sensing and GIS technology. The study is helpful to establish a new approach and new data acquisition of the lineament mapping, and to compare this remote, inaccessible and lesser known part of the Suru Valley by using the remote sensing source data in association with the field study of the area. In this study, Landsat ETM, Landsat PAN, LISS III images and digital elevation model were used. Different edge enhancement techniques were applied on Landsat ETM and LISS III to better identify the lineaments using different filters while 3×3 edge enhancement filter, Laplacian filter and sobel filter are mostly used. The enhanced image was merged with the PAN image in order to differentiate between the artificial linear features such as roads, canals etc. and the lineaments. In all, 36 distinct linear features were identified and digitized their latitude, longitude and the direction was analyzed by rose diagram. By the analysis of these lineaments, it was found that all lineaments are in NW-SE direction The Drainage map of the study area, was digitized from the Landsat ETM image, and extracted from DEM’s by manual digitization and automatic extraction by different software’s which shows Dendritic drainage pattern indicating that the Valley is almost composed of uniform rock type. The mapping of these geological structures improves the existing knowledge about the distribution and direction of the Stress in the Suru Valley.