Prediction of Land Use/ Land Cover Change of Rasht County Using Cellular Automata- Markov Chain Model

Increase in urban population has caused fast sprawl of man made areas in Rasht county in three last decades. Hence, it is expected to degrade natural landscape and change in the pattern and structure of natural and semi natural ecosystems in case of continuing the trend. This study is designed, aiming to understand the changes and prediction of future changes in Rasht county LULC (land use/ land cover) in order to help land and resources planning. Accordingly, LULC change detection is conducted applying three TM satellite images at 1987, 1999 and 2011 and post classification comparison method. To predict the LULC changes up to 2023, a coupled cellular automata and Markov chain model (CA_Markov) is applied base on validation of this model in the study area. The results indicated that man-made areas increased 56.7 % and itself degraded 11 % of agriculture land and 4 % of forest cover in 24 years ago. Validation of CA_Markov model revealed that it has had an acceptable performance in prediction of the LULC changes in the study. Moreover, the man-made areas will increase by 38 % if current trend in the observed changes continues. Accordingly, it will degrade 15 % of agriculture land and 2 % of forest cover in comparison with present situation. To prevent degradation of the agricultural and natural lands in competition with present sprawl of man-made areas, it is necessary to implement vertical and compact development policies as well as allocation of land resources according to land use planning principles in the study area.