Isfahan Land Cover Change Detection in The Past 4 Decades Using Remote Sensing

Remote sensing is the main technology for assessing expansion and rate of land cover changes. Knowing the different kinds of land cover changes and human activities in different parts of lands, as the base information for different planning is especially important. In this study, the land cover changes of Isfahan city that is consist of Isfahan and its` surrounded area was studied for the past 4 decades. For researching the study objectives, the aerial photos with scale of 1:50000 taken in 1955, MSS, TM and ETM+ images from Landsat satellite taken respectively in 1972, 1990 and 2001 and the topography maps of Isfahan city and its` surrounding were used. All of the aerial photos and satellite images with the nearest neighbor sampling were georegistered with the RMSe less than one pixel. For image processing, the best false colored composite image was first produced according to OIF index. Then land cover maps of the studied area were produced in 5 classes by using the combination of supervised and unsupervised classification and NDVI index. At the end, the produced maps compared with post-classification method. The results showed that the most urban area sprawl was occurred between 1972-1990 with the mean of 571 ha in a year and the least growth was come about between 1955-1972 with approximately 324 ha in a year. However, by declining the annual mean of green cover 1263 ha during 1955-1972, the most green cover demolition occurred in study area.