Application of Landscape Metrics in Assessing Land Use Change's Trend by Using Remote Sensing and GIS Case study: Dehloran Desert Area

Changing the Land use induced by human activities، due to lack of attention to environmental constrains has a great impact on the landscape and the continuous developing trend of land use change، resulting from the complex actions and reactions of structural and operational factors، has had severe impacts on natural ecosystems. Therefore، in consideration with the negative effects of unsuitable use of land and land use change، knowledge and understanding about the changes is essential in environmental impact assessment due to development for sustainable planning and management of the land. This study was conducted to investigate the trend of changes in landscape ecology in Dehloran، Ilam. For developing maps of Land cover and analyzing the changes، we used، respectively، the satellite images of (1985) TM and (2007) ETM + were applied and landscape metrics of class area، density of patches، number of patches، mean of patches size، edge density and mean of shape index. Various class-level landscape pattern metrics were calculated using FRAGTATS software، in order to analyze landscape fragmentation. The analysis of landscape metrics revealed the extensive replacement of fair rangelands by agricultural lands، rangelands، residential areas and barren lands. The results showed that increase in the number of patches and decrease in the mean of the area size was an important indicator of significant index of degradation، and the process of degradation and destruction of landscape ecology was in an increase mood. Therefore the obtained results necessitates paying attention to the quality of land use and cover in the region to appropriate and sustainable exploit of natural resources.