Land Cover/Use Changes Detection Using Satellite Imagery

Change detection involves the application of multi-temporal datasets to quantitatively analyze the temporal effects of the phenomena. This study aimed to evaluate land cover/use changes of Solegon Wetland using Landsat TM satellite images. Two images over 11 years period (taken 1998, and 2009) were compared and geometric, atmospheric and topographic corrections were applied. Maximum likelihood and post-classification techniques were used to detect land use changes. The overall classification accuracy and Kappa coefficient for the produced maps were more than 0.72 and 79%, respectively ((1998, 0.91 & 83%) and (2009, (0.72 &83%)). The results showed that part of rangelands and agricultural lands dramatically changed in 2009 compared with 1998 and some areas changed to bare soil and the Solegan wetland shrink from190 to 69 hectares during this period. The findings of this study denoted that remote sensing data can provide appropriate information for specifying land use changes due to their repeatability, broad vision and digital format suitable for computer analysis. This approach will support adaptive management of wetlands such as Solegan.