Analysis of Landuse Changes on Land Degradation and Desertification in Coastal Regions of Southern Iran

In this study, land use change trend in coastal areas of south of Iran, including Sistan Baluchestan, Hormozgan, Bushehr were studied during 31 years (1988-2019). Landsat satellite images including TM, ETM +, OLI were used for this purpose. The maximum likelihood method was also used to classify satellite images. Vegetation indices (SAVI) and salinity index (SI1) were used to influence land use classes on land degradation and desertification. The results of land use change trend showed that Changes in land use classes of man-made areas and saline lands as the most dynamic land use classes followed an increasing trend of 2.72% and 1.14%, respectively. The results of multivariate regression analysis showed that three vegetation, saline and man-made variables, and four vegetation, saline, man-made and sandy areas explain 22.3% and 37.8% of the dependent variables of vegetation and salinity indices, respectively. Therefore, in more than 60% of changes, other environmental variables are affected. Hence, with respect to the results of land use area and regression analysis and the mean trend of SAVI and SI1 changes, where vegetation and SAVI classes show decreasing trend and saline land and SI1 classes have increasing trend, it can be concluded that land use changes is phenomena that changes ecosystem services with almost irreversible impacts. This will have nothing to do with disturbing the ecosystem balance and intensifying land degradation in coastal areas.