Land cover monitoring and its impacts on land degradation and desertification trend using Landsat images (a case study of eastern Iran, Hamoun Wetlands)

Nowadays, remote sensing and GIS technologies are used as a key element in monitoring of land use and vegetation changes. Using this method as one the main sources receiving and updating information on the Earth's surface changes, plays an important role in the management of ecosystems. The present study aims to investigate land use change, vegetation dynamics and trend of Hamoun wetland between 2006 and 2013 using of Landsat images. In order to accuracy the classification used from phenomena spectral features after performing the necessary corrections on the images using an unsupervised classification method based on spectral properties of phenomena in different bands. To determine the percentage of change in land use, information obtained from each layers in 2006 was placed on the results of 2013 and determined changes during those period. Accuracy the method was revised based on field research conducted in 2010 that Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) is an index with the highest correlation coefficient of feature. According to the results vegetation and water classes have declined significantly during the study period And the area of bare land classes have been added that reflect the trend towards desertification in the study area. Regression of Hamoun makes some environmental challenges such as: dust, job loss (fishing and Livestock) and migration.