Land Cover Classification Analysis, Using Satellite Imagery (ACase Study in Shahriar County)

The importance of accurate and timely information describing the nature and extent of landresources and changes over time is increasing. We have developed a methodology to map andmonitor land cover change using multi temporal Landsat data in Shahriar county of Iran for2001 and 2014. Land cover mapping is achieved through interpretation of Landsat satelliteimages of 2001 and 2014 image using ENVI 4.3. Based on the Anderson land coverclassification system, the land covers are classified as mountainous, bare land, rangelands andresidential land. To evaluate the change maps for the 2001to 2014 interval, we randomlysampled the areas that classified as change and no-change and determined whether they werecorrectly classified. The maps showed that between 2001 and 2014 the amount of residentialland increased from 17% to 37.4% of the total area, while rangelands, mountainous and bareland decreased from 32% to 26%, 26% to 13.2% and 24% to 23.6% respectively. The resultsquantify the land cover change patterns in the Shahriar County and demonstrate the potentialof multi temporal Landsat to provide an accurate, economical means to map and analyzechanges in land cover over time that can be used as inputs to land management and policydecisions

Keywords:

Land cover change , Satellite Images , ENVI , Classification , Shahriar County