Detection of land use changes in Hoor Al Azim wetland using remote sensing and geographic information system techniques

In order to protect the reasonable and sagely of wetlands and also recognize the changes in their characteristics which can be caused by natural factors or human activities used remote sensing techniques and satellite image analysis. This study aimed to evaluate land use changes of Hoor Al Azim Wetland using LandSat ETM (2003) and OLI (2014) satellite images. After geometric and atmospheric correction, maximum likelihood and post-classification techniques were used to detect land use/cover changes. The overall classification accuracy and the Kappa coefficient for the produced maps to 2003 and 2014 were 0.91 and 0.89, respectively. Map classification of 2014 showed that the area of Hoor Al Azim wetlands has been decreased from 84300 to 45500 hectares. The results of change detection showed during the study residential, and rangeland area had increased, but agricultural and wetland had reduced. The findings of this study denoted that remote sensing data can provide appropriate information for specifying land use changes due to their repeatability, and broad vision. This approach will support adaptive management of wetlands such as Hoor Al Azim wetland.