Strategies for monitoring environmental changes: monitoring and predicting land-use land-cover (LULC) change (Case study: South Pars special economic zone, Iran)

 In recent years, the importance of modeling and predicting land-use/land-cover (LULC) changes for regional planning and environmental management has grown significantly. This study aims to discover and predict LULC changes in the South Pars' special economic zone over a 20-year period.

  In this study, geographic information system (GIS) and a remote sensing technique (RS) were used to classify satellite imagery and the land change modeler (LCM) for monitoring LULC changes. The CA-Markov model was also used to predict LULC changes. The input data of our model were satellite images from TM sensor (Thematic Mapper) for 1998, and 2008 and OLI sensor (Operation Land Imager) for 2018, and this led us to predict LULC changes for 2028.

 Monitoring the results indicated that the area of the built-up areas was increased by 21.2533 km2 (0.81%) during this period, and the largest reduction area was related to the Bare land with 15,298 KM2 (-1.174%). prediction of LULC changes for 2028 revealed that the area of the Built-up areas is doubled and its area will reach 48.65 KM2 (56%). Water bodies and bare land areas will decrease by 113.13 km2 (-19%) to 165.96 km2 (-12%) respectively. Vegetation cover will increase to 23.24 km2 (65%). These results showed that the study area is susceptible to changes due to environmental and human factors that should be considered in urban and environmental planning.