Investigating the Impact of Land Use and Land Cover Changes on Wetlands Using Satellite Data (Case Study: Jazmorian Wetland)

Unbalanced development of different land use/cover in basins without considering the contribution of all components, can cause serious damage to the stability of the entire basin. The development of agricultural areas by increasing the amount of water use and creating dams upstream of rivers are the most important threats to wetlands in many places. Jazmorian wetland is one of the seasonal wetlands in the south-east of Iran. The most important source of water supply for this wetland is the Halil-Rood River. To investigate the land use/cover changes of Jazmurian wetland and  Halil-Rood River, the time series of Landsat satellite data for the years 1354, 1374, 1387, and 1401 were used in the present research. The Landsat satellite images were classified using a hybrid classification method and the land use/cover of the study area maps were prepared. The accuracy of the prepared maps for the latest image was calculated by preparing the error matrix, calculating the kappa index, and the overall accuracy of more than 0.8 and 9%, respectively. The investigation of the prepared maps showed that the area of land under water increased from 1354 to 1374 and then decreased from 119,552 hectares in 1374 to 723 hectares in 1401. The area of agricultural land increased from 2131 hectares in 1354 to 133913 hectares in 1387 and declined to 105795 hectares in 1401. The results of this study show that in this period, with the construction of a dam upstream of the Halil-Rood River, and the development of agricultural lands, the water volume level of the wetland decreased, and the wetland completely dried up in 1401. The present study indicates the necessity of considering different components of a watershed in development planning to achieve sustainable development.