Analysis of Land Use Change in Balanjchai Watershed (Urmia) Using Landscape Metrics

Nowadays, landscape differentiation is known as one of the most important issues in ecology and biological diversity. Decline Detection and analysis of land use changes are the basis for recognizing environmental issues and problems. The purpose of this study was to investigate the spatial variations of land use time of Balanjchai (Urmia) with the help of remote sensing science and using landscape Metrics in a 24-year period which is important for current and future planning of land use for sustainable development. To preparing land use map, Landsat satellite 4 images of 1992 and Landsat satellite 8 images of 2016 were used. In order to study land cover change, The Number of Patches, Patch Density, Edge Density, Percentage of Lands, Largest Patch Index & Landscape Shape Index metrics in Class level and Number of Patches, Patch Density, Percentage of Lands, Landscape Shape Index, Shannon,s Diversity Index & Contagion metrics in Landscape level were used on FRAGSTATS 4.2. Software. The results of this study, using the measures at the level of the class and land, indicate that in general, the shape of the fragmented territory is more complex and irregular in terms of the structural integrity, more discontinuous (from 38.21 % to 24.10 %), and in terms of the type of usage, the coverage is more varied in the unit area (from 1.08 to 1.3). Also, the interpretation of the results reflects the fact that human-made and agricultural spots over the period of time have undergone a completely consistent