Investigation of Demographic Change and its Impact on Land Use Changes (Case Study: Gorgan City)

The urban expansion and excessive destruction of agricultural lands is one of the problems of human civilization, especially in developing countries. Although the physical development of urban is a dynamic process and inevitable, but unsystematic and inconsistent growth of urban, the need for proper planning to protect valuable resources of the earth and the productive economy reveal. This article tries to assess the relationship between demographic changes and land use changes over a period of 21 years in Gorgan city. In this way, the Landsat satellite images of TM (1994) and OLI (2015) sensors; and techniques of remote sensing, such as supervised classification and Image difference were applied to identify and monitor the land use changes. The Classification results show three land use types, including forest, residential areas, and agricultural lands. The result of land use changes indicates an increase in the area of residential (1870 ha), and a decrease in the area of agricultural land (1712 ha) and forests (158 ha). Also, population statistics were obtained in these two years and the population growth rate was calculated. According to the results, the rate of change in the urban was positive and in fact increased, and the rate of change of agricultural and forest areas have been negative. The most changes were related to agricultural land use and more changes have taken place in the eastern and western side of Gorgan. The changes led to the loss of agricultural land and forests and instability in the development process of the urban.