Proceedings of 2 nd International Conference on Innovations in Electronics and Communication Engineering (ICIECE-2013) 9-10 th August 2013, Guru Nanak Institutions, Hyderabad P a g e | 246 Change Detection and Estimation of Illegal Mining using Satellite Images Merugu Suresh 1 , Dr Kamal Jain 2 1 Research Scholar, Indian Institute of Technology - Roorkee, and Assoc. Professor, Deptt. of ECE, CMRCET,AP, India. 2 Professor, Indian Institute of Technology - Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India-247667. Email Id: sureshmerugu.iitr@gmail.com ABSTRACT Viewing the Earth from space is now crucial to the understanding of the usage of man’s activities on his day to day resource base over time. In situations of rapid and often unrecorded land use change, observations of the earth from space provide objective information of human utilization of the landscape. Over the past years, data from Earth sensing satellites has become vital in mapping the Earth’s features and infrastructures, managing natural resources and studying environmental changes like illegal surface mining. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how digital image processing and remote sensing techniques can be utilized as a tool for monitoring surface illegal mining operations and can be integrated into the monitoring process, allowing the regulatory agencies responsible for monitoring surface illegal mining and reclamation to do so more efficiently and help avoid or minimize the adverse effects of illegal mining. Data includes satellite images and GIS layers from the study area. These techniques will be useful for monitoring the progression of disturbance caused by illegal mining, identifying and tracking reclamation sites, and assessing land cover changes. Monitoring the illegal mining and reclamation of these lands is critical to ensure and they will be returned to their natural state. Many of the government agencies charged with monitoring illegal mining activities are already stressed by ever-growing workloads, as well as budgetary concerns. Key words: Change Detection, Surface Mining, Remote Sensing & GIS, Image Processing. 1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY Various studies have shown that there remain only few landscapes on the Earth that is still in their natural state. Due to anthropogenic activities, the Earth surface is being significantly altered in some manner and human being’s presence on the Earth and their use of land has had a profound effect upon the natural environment thus resulting into an observable pattern in the land use/land cover over time. The land use/land cover pattern of a region is an outcome of natural and socio – economic factors and their utilization by man in time and space. Land is becoming a scarce resource due to immense agricultural and demographic pressure. Hence, information on land use / land cover and possibilities for their optimal use is essential for the selection, planning and implementation of land use schemes to meet the increasing demands for basic human needs and welfare. This information also assists in monitoring the dynamics of land use resulting out of changing demands of increasing population. Land use and land cover change has become a central component in current strategies for managing natural resources and monitoring environmental changes. Remote Sensing (RS) with Image processing techniques and Geographic Information System (GIS) are now providing new tools for advanced ecosystem management. The collection of remotely sensed data facilitates the synoptic analyses of Earth - system function, patterning, and change at local, regional and global scales over time; such data also provide an important link between intensive, localized ecological research and regional, national and international conservation and management of biological diversity (Wilkie and Finn, 1996). 2 LITERATURE REVIEW George P. Petropoulos, Panagiotis Partsinevelos and Zinovia Mitraka (2012) carried out a study on multi-temporal change detection scheme based on Landsat TM imagery and SVMs was proposed for identifying, quantifying and analysing the spatio-temporal response of the