Assessment of land cover change and desertification using remote sensing technology in north of Isfahan province (Case study: Kashan, Aran and Bidgol)

Desertification is a serious ecological, environmental, and socio-economic threat to the world, and there is a pressing need to develop a reasonable and reproducible method to assess it at different scales. Therefore, in the present paper, changes in cover and desertification of Kashan, Aran and Bidgol regions in the north of Isfahan were developed using Landsat ETM and OLI data. According to this research, NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), TGSI (Topsoil Grain Size Index), and land surface albedo were selected as indicators for representing land surface conditions from vegetation biomass, landscape pattern, and reflection. A Decision Tree (DT) approach was used to assess the land cover change and desertification of the study area from 1995-2020. Temporal changes indicated an increase in NDVI, TGSI, and albedo trends during this period. The spatial distribution of NDVI showed that values greater than 0.5 were observed only in a small part of the west and southwest, while high values of TGSI and albedo occupied a large area of the study area. There was also a correlation between the above three indicators at 95% (R = 0.99). The results also showed that desertification is increasing in the study area, so that the intensity of desertification from 1995 to 2020 in classes without desertification was low, medium, and severe. The high desertification class decreased by 1420.75 square kilometers (13.54%), while severe desertification increased by approximately 1388.8 square kilometers (13.23%). The highest NDVI values were found in the non-desert area and the low desertification class, while the highest TGSI and albedo values were found in the high and severe desertification classes.