Assessment of land cover changes of Iran in the period of 2001 to 2015 using MODIS land products (MCD12Q1)

Land cover change is one of the most effective factors of environmental change. So, understanding and predicting the causes, processes and consequences of land cover has become a major challenge. The remote sensing and satellite data technologies can be used effectively to detect and quantify land cover changes and its effects on the environment. This research used the MODIS MCD12Q1 yearly data at 500 m resolution to evaluate the spatio-temporal changes in the national land cover of Iran from 2001 to 2015 in five years periods. Land cover maps of Iran were generated based on 12 classes for years of 2001, 2005, 2010 and 2015 and then evaluated using “Landcover Change Matrix”. Areal distribution analysis showed that the most parts of Iran covered by barren areas (more than 60%). The area of forests, croplands and grasslands were reduced from 0.8, 4.8 and 21.4 percent respectively in the year of 2001 to 0.6, 4.5 and 20.9 percent of Iran’s area in 2015. Furthermore, to evaluate land cover changes in five years’ period, the land cover map of the first and last years of each period were compared using “Landcover Change Matrix”. Results showed that in the five years periods of 2001-2005, 2005-2010 and 2010-2015 land cover of Iran changed increasingly as 2.13, 3.25 and 3.30 percent respectively of Iran’s area. And the overall changes of land cover in Iran from 2001 to 2015 is 6.08 percent of Iran’s area.