Monitoring the Land use and land cover changes, during 1987 to 2009 in Hamoun Wildlife Refuge, Using Remote Sensing Images and the Geographic Information System (G.I.S.)

Land use and land cover changes are among the important factors in hydrologic system, erosion and biodiversity in protected area. Detecting the Land use/cover changes makes ecosystem management possible for protective objections. In this study for detecting the land use/cover changes in Hamoun wildlife refuge during past three decades, the satellite data were used. Images from 1987, 2001 and 2009 were used. Image correction was done with RSMe lower 0.54 pixel and land use/cover maps were produced using hybrid classification method. Vegetation map was produced using tasseldcap greenness index and field study, water, salt; and bare land maps were produced using normalize difference water index (NDWI) and PCA processing on satellite images. Merging of each layer land use/cover maps were prepared for each year. Changes were detected by post classification comparison approach. Results have shown that wetland has completely become dried in 2001 and during 1987 to 2001, because drought vegetation dramatically decreased and salt land increased. In 2009 the wetlands were filled with water in some areas and vegetation grew again and increased to 20% of total study area (from 6% in 2001); and the salt lands decreased from 39% in 2001 to 13% in 2009.