SITE SUITABILITY ASSESSMENT FOR RESIDENTIAL AREAS IN SOUTH CHENNAI REGION USING REMOTE SENSING AND GIS TECHNIQUES

The estimation of land suitability of Chennai southern area is presented. The total area of the study area is 108.69 sq. km, out of which settlement area was found to be 5.51 sq. km and the forest cover is about 16.34 sq. km. Water bodies 12.21 sq. km and the Barren or unclassified land covered 74.63 sq. km. The total percentage of water bodies, forest, settlements and barren lands covers about 11.23, 15.03, 5.07and 68.67 respectively. These studies revels that the southern part of Chennai is best for land-use suitability as compare to northern part. From the study it is clearly identified that 45.6% percent of the study areas come under restricted area (water bodies and forest areas are considered as restricted area in the study), 31.8% of moderate suitability areas and moderate high suitability of about 22 %. The overall suitability map indicated that most of the area is coming under restricted area and only moderate suitability areas can be properly used for residential areas development.