Assessment of Changes in Landuse Connectivity and Pattern using Landscape Metrics in the Zolachai Watershed, Salmas

Nowadays, landuse change and human imapcts on the natural environemnt due to environmental constraints raised several environmental effects and deteriorate natural ecosystems. This activities had reduced the extent of the natural arenas and increases its dispersion and fragmentation. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the changes of the Zolachai landuse model using remote sensing and the use of landscape metrics in a 24-year time span, which is needed to proper planning for sustainable development. The Landsat 4 Satellite images of 1992 year and Landsat 8 of 2016 year were used for land use mapping. And by Maximum Likelihood method, which is one of the most popular statistical methods of classification, with a general accuracy of 92% and 93%, were categorized.  In order to study land cover change, The Number of Patches, Patch Density, Edge Density, Percentage of Lands, Largest Patch Index & Landscape Shape Index metrics in Class level and Number of Patches, Patch Density, Largest Patch Index, Landscape Shape Index, Shannon,s Diversity Index & Contagion metrics in Landscape level were used based on the FRAGSTATS 4.2 Software. The results indicates that the Number of Patch (NP) metric increased, which means fragementation in natural land uses. Also, the mean value of Patch Density (PD) had increased (from 41.03 to 62.81) in the study area as a sign of increasing heterogenity of land uses. The integrity and connectivity of structural elements has reduced from 43.1 to 41.89 Percent Which prove the decline in connectivity of the study area.