The Analysis of Landscape Structure and Land Use Changes as an Ecological Approach to Acheive the Sustainable Regional Planning(case study: Latian Dam Watershed)

Landscape changes occur by natural trends or disturbing events. The current study evaluated the landscape structure changes of Latian Dam watershed by means of landscape metrics to achieve the ecological approach in order to formulate sustainable regional development and planning for area of the study. Land use changes were identified using four time-series atmospherically-corrected surface reflectance Landsat images from 1987 to 2017.Then,7 metrics in landscape level and 8 metrics in class level were chosen to quantification the landscape structure by Fragstats 4.2 software, in order to analyze the landscape changes. The results and analysis show the increase in NP and IJI, and the decrease of AREA-MN which mean the fragmentation occurs in landscape level. The increase of AREA-MN and NP in built-area class shows the tendency to coarse grain structure (homogeneity), and the decrease of AREA-MN and increase of NP in vegetated area class, shows the tendency to fine grain structure (heterogeneity) in landscape level. These scientific findings of past, present and ability to estimate the future land use of the study area will assist planners and decision-makers to formulate environmental protection plans to conserve natural heritage.