Detection and Extraction of Changes in Zarineh Rud River's Variation between 1989 and 2014 via Remote Sensing Data

Variations in route and morphology of the rivers are among the important characteristics of floodplains. Since these variations occur within time scale, it is appropriate to study those using remote sensing techniques. This study aims to identify and extract part of Zarineh Rud river variation from 1989 to 2014 using landsat satellite images. To gain this objective, radiometric and geometric modifications have been carried out in the first phase. Afterward, the images have been developed by linear method for enhancing the resolution. Then, by principal component analysis and band combination, the best component and band were determined. By adding these components and bands to ArcGIS, the river range within the mentioned time span was extracted and analyzed. Furthermore, for quantitative analysis of the river route variation, curvature coefficient and Fereaktaly dimension indices were used to compare the different years. It was found that there is a low potential in river to have morphologic variations in different parts. This is due to the fact that there has been a negligible change in river flow rate since 2000. The highest variation is observed in 1989. Instability of the river route during the studied time span was very low, except for one of the river’s twists from the 1989 pattern. The results of river extraction methods also confirmed that principal component analysis for identifying the border line of the river is more appropriate than the other methods.