Monitoring dynamics of date palm plantations from 1984 to 2013 using Landsat time-series in Sahara desert oases of Algeria

Abstract

This study used remote sensing tools to quantify spatial dynamics of date palm plantations (DPP) in desert oases of Ziban region (NE Algeria) over the past three decades and understand the impacts of agricultural development on land use-land cover changes. Spatiotemporal changes of DPP (Phoenix dactylifera) were detected using likelihood supervised classification for each of three Landsat satellite images (TM-1984, ETM+-1999 and OLI-2013). The DPP area quadrupled over the last three decades (1984-2013), accounting for about 75.46% of date palm cultivation expansion, while arid rangelands decreased with about 25,932.96 ha as result of political agricultural programs that favored the exploitation of natural habitats into DPP This study reported the potential of remote sensing imagery processing technique for monitoring and rapidly detecting land change in landscapes of desert oases, with accuracy and a relatively low cost over a long-time period and large scale regions.