Anticipating of spatial changes trend of land uses based on the cellular automaton-Markov model in Kessillian watershed

Changes of land uses have recently been increasing due to anthropogenic and climatic factors while in order to manage the land and natural resources, having monitoring data of these changes is necessary to make the decision and programming for now and future of the land. Kessillian watershed was considered to simulating of coming changes of land-use. Hence, land-use and land cover maps of the catchment was prepared by using multi-period Landsat images such as 1986, 2000, and 2011 years. The integration of cellular automaton and Markov model was then applied to survey the land-use/land cover condition in 2011 using ROC (0.9) and was also foreseen land-use/land cover for 2030. Regarding detecting and simulating of the changes, forest lands were decreased process and rangelands and inhabited areas were increased. The agricultural lands have not seriously changed because of steep slope and low fertility during the time. In most cases, the maximum changes were occurred around the forest and rangelands areas and the change trends will be decreased to give a wide berth to these lands. Markov model can precisely show the land changes in the area via time period and can anticipate the future of them. Therefore, this model can be applied in order to manage the land.