Monitoring land-use changes using remote sensing, ENVI and ArcGIS software in Hamoun Wetlands

This study aimed to investigate the trend of land-use change in Hamoun Helmand, Hamoun Sabori, and Hamoun Poozak wetlands in a five-year period. For this purpose, images of the Sentinel 2 satellite were prepared and processed from 2016 to 2020. After atmospheric corrections, the images were classified using the minimum distance method (supervised classification) in ENV software. NDVI and NDWI indices were also extracted. Classified maps were validated with samples taken from Google Earth images. The maps extracted from the minimum distance method, from 2016 to 2020, have a kappa coefficient of 0.8, 0.74, 0.79, 0.73, and 0.76, respectively, the extracted maps of the NDVI index have a kappa coefficient of 0.9, 0.94, 0.89, 0.81 and 0.74, The extracted maps of NDWI index had kappa coefficients of 0.94, 0.89, 0.81, 0.87 and 0.99. The correlation coefficient (R2) of the results obtained from the NDWI index with the results of the minimum distance method was 0.99. However, the value of this variable for the results of the NDVI index with the method of minimum distance is equal to 0.37. The results of this study indicate that from 2016 to 2018, the water area has decreased by 7% and has been replaced by vegetation. The results of this study indicate that from 2016 to 2018, the water area has decreased by 7% and has been replaced by vegetation. Also, 8% of the barren land area has become saline. With the increase of rainfall in 2019 and 2020, an increase in the water area and grassland and a decrease in a barren land and saline fields have been observed. It should be noted that although Hamoun Wetlands had a significant water area in 2020 thanks to spring rains, cross-sectional rains could not be a permanent solution to the problems caused by lake drying in the Hamoun area. The problems that have arisen in the Sistan region over the years require a coherent multi-year plan between Iran and Afghanistan. One of the proposed solutions, considering the capacities of the Sistan region, is to use the region's wind to produce energy and transfer it.

Monitoring land-use changes using remote sensing, ENVI and ArcGIS software in Hamoun Wetlands Keywords:

NDVI , NDWI , Minimum distance method , kappa coefficient