Monitoring spatial and temporal changes of cover and land use in Arkavaz watershed using remote sensing

Careful monitoring of spatial and temporal change of ground level complications to understand the relationships and interactions between human and natural phenomena in order to better decision-making is very important. Remote sensing data are the primary sources that are widely have been used to monitor changes in recent decades. In this study, the land cover changes using three time satellite images i.e. 1988, 2001 and 2010 in Ilam Arkavaz watershed has been studied. Therefore, each of the images were classified using maximum likelihood method. The main identified classes are residential, agricultural, garden, forest, pasture and land without vegetative cover. Area of this land use classes for each year is determined and compared. Analysis of temporal changes of images shows the percentage changes over the 22 years studied in land use classes were as Residential 56.03, agriculture 24.85, garden 65.93, forest 27.4, pasture - 15.3 and no vegetation cover 27.45. The results indicate that the forest and pasture areas of have been facing with reducing the area and the annual rate of decline forest area in this watershed is 0.97 % that is higher than the global average (0.2 %). This situation indicates a worrying decline in forest cover in the region.