Monitoring and prediction of land use changes and physical expansion of Babol city during 1985-2040 using multi-temporal Landsat imagery

Nowadays, interlinking of structural, social, environmental and economic aspects of cities is a major problem which results from unplanned horizontal expansion of cities and their land-use changes. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the land use changes and physical expansion of Babol city during the last 30 years and to predict the land use change’s trend for the future. To do so, Landsat multi-temporal images of 1985, 1992, 2000, and 2015 were used. The maximum likelihood algorithm was applied for classification of land use and cross tab model was used for investigation of land use changes. The scattered expansion of the city was examined through Shannon’s entropy index. Moreover, the CA-Markov model was applied to predict the land use change’s trend as well as the physical expansion of Babol city. Results of the present study confirmed the extreme physical expansion of Babol city during the last three decades. Such an expansion was the main reason for degradation of agricultural lands and green spaces around the suburbs. The growth rate of the built-up areas was 92%. The more distance from the built-up areas the less changes occurred in land uses. Also, the Shannon entropy index was increased from 0.73 in 1985 to 0.8 in 2015 which is an indication of the scattered expansion of the city. It can be predicted that besides decreasing 704 hectares of agricultural areas, a 33% growth will be occurred in built up areas from 2015 to 2040. It consequently requires the specific attention of urban managers and planners.