Land Use Changes Trends in Manasht - Ghalarang Protected Area Using satellite imagery

The aim of this study was to predict and investigate land use change trends in Manasht - ghalarang protected area in Ilam province using Landsat satellite imagery (L5 TM-1984, L5TM-1999, L8 OLA-2014). After geometric and atmospheric correction on satellite images, four land uses including agriculture, garden, pasture and forest were identified in the study area. For classification of satellite images used the comparison of maximum likelihood (MLC) and k nearest neighbor (KNN) methods, and for identifying user changes from post-classification comparison methods, the difference of vegetation index (NDVI) and principal component analysis (PCA) were used. Prediction of land use changes in 2024 was performed using the automated fusion cell and Markov chain model. The classification of images used with the MLC method is higher than KNN method. According to the classification results, during the period 1984–2014, decreases in rangelands and forests and increase in gardens and agricultural were observed. In the comparative method after classification most changes happened in period of 1984-1999 were related to forest conversion to agriculture, while in period of 1999-2014 were to forest to pasture. Forecasts of changes for 2024 showed that agricultural land-uses increased by 1.10%, garden by 0.52% and rangelands and forests decreased by 0.76% and 0.86 %, respectively. Based on the results, the use of Landsat images in combination with the Markov model in modeling land use change, had high accuracy and can be effective in decision-making and management of the region.