Multi-Temporal Detection of Agricultural Land Losses Using Remote Sensing and Gis Techniques, Shanderman, Iran

Abstract

Over the last decades, north of Iran underwent remarkable land use/cover changes due to socio-economic and environmental factors. This study, focused on agricultural land changes for the period of 1990-2020 at Shanderman, Iran, employed Landsat 5 TM, and Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS images. A supervised maximum likelihood classification technique was utilized for the purposes of satellite data classification to four classes: agricultural land, forest, grassland, and built-up area. Results of land change modeller showed that, during the last three decades, agricultural land, grassland and forest decreased by 42.81%, 35.50%, and 4.05%, respectively, while built-up area increased by 361.23%. Most of the losses in agriculture areas occurred in 1990-2011 (44.64%). The predominant losses in 2011-2020 belonged to the forestland (12.47%), making them approx. 3.44 times higher than in 1990-2011. The results highlight the need for serious attention to the deforestation phenomenon, which leads to the conversion of forest into agricultural and built-up areas.