Land Use Change Quanitification

[Heather_Dufty]

I am trying to figure out how to quantify Land Use change for two separate years. I have two Land Use Shapefiles one from 1992 and one from 2003. Both layers are equipped with the fields land use code and shape area for all records (amoung other fields of course). I need to figure out how the land use composition changed and which categories were converted into other categories. As I said I have both years extracted to the study area and intersected and now can't figure out how to query the results I am looking for. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[JayantaPoddar]

You could try the following two steps

1. Union—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop 

The output polygon will have the attributes of both the shapefiles.

2. Dissolve—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop keeping both the LandUse codes in the Dissolve_Fields parameter.

[ScottMoyer]

I concur with Jayanta with one exception, after the Union create a new field 'Change' (in the Union feature class), and field calculate land uses 1992 and 2003 (with a space in between). Then do the dissolve on the 'Change' field, which will show changes, and also areas of no change that will have like values. If you're dealing with acres don't forget to 'Calculate Geometry' on the 'Acres' field.

Scott