Land use/land cover change prediction using multi-temporal satellite imagery and multi-layer perceptron markov model

Abstract

This paper aims to predict the trend of land use land cover (LULC) changes in Dak Nong province over time. Data from Landsat images captured in 2009, 2015, and 2018 was employed to analyze and predict the spatial distributions of LULC categories. The Random Forest (RF) was adopted to classify the images into ten different LULC classes. Besides, integration of Multi-Layer Perceptron Markov Neural Network (MLP-NN) with Markov Chain (MC) was applied to predict the future LULC changes in the region based on the change detection over the previous years. For all classified images, overall accuracy (OA) ranged from 77.35% to 84.55% with kappa (K) coefficient index ranging from 0.75 to 0.8. The results revealed that the annual population growth together with social-economic development was regarded as major drives for land conversion in the area. The predicted map showed a significant decrease trend in the forest classes by 2025, accounting for 23 thousand ha. However, residential areas, rubber, and agricultural land classes are predicted to rise to 460 ha, 3,000 ha, and 20,000 ha, respectively. The simulated model and calibrated area data may be a vital contribution to sustainable development efforts of the local based on the dynamics of LULC and future LULC change scenarios. Overall, ascertaining the complex interface related to changes in land use and its major drivers over time provides useful information predict to explore the future trend of LULC changes, establish alternative land-use schemes and serve as guidelines for urban planning policymakers.