Monitoring land use/land cover change using multi-temporal Landsat satellite images in an arid environment: a case study
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Monitoring land use/land cover change using multi-temporal Landsat satellite images in an arid environment: a case study of El-Arish, Egypt Nasem Badreldin & Rudi Goossens
Received: 20 October 2012 / Accepted: 11 March 2013 # Saudi Society for Geosciences 2013
Abstract Environment in arid conditions is dynamic and needs more investigation to understand the complexity of change. This spatiotemporal study will help to assess and monitor the land use and land cover change in the arid region of El-Arish area, where the climate and human activities are the major threats to rural development. In the past 11 years, dramatic changes of environment have been recorded in case studies. The post-classification comparison method was used to observe the changes using multitemporal satellite images which were captured in the years 1999, 2001, 2005, and 2010. The overall accuracy of the produced thematic images was assessed regarding to the quantity and allocation disagreements. Five classes were defined in this investigation: bare soil, vegetation, urban, sand dunes, and fertile soil. From the year 1999 to 2010, fertile soil was increased by 13 %. Bare soil class occupied more than 50 % of land in the case study during for over a decade. From year 1999 to 2010, vegetation cover witnessed a dramatic increase. Soil and water management are the keys of land development and positive land use and land cover dynamics. Changing agricultural policies of using the available water resources are needed in the case study to prevent severe food shortage in the future. Keywords Land use/cover change . Landsat . Image processing . Arid region . Egypt
N. Badreldin (*) : R. Goossens Department of Geography, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281 S8, 9000 Ghent, Belgium e-mail: [email protected]
Introduction Land use and land cover (LULC) datasets are important sources for many applications, such as environmental monitoring, urban management, and socioeconomic studies (Weng 2010). LULC dynamics can be observed in terrestrial characteristics at local and global scales (Abdel Kawy and Abou El-Magd 2012; Du et al. 2010; Kelarestaghi and Jafarian Jeloudar 2009; Mohamed et al. 2012). Remote sensing technology is supporting research in LULC dynamics with data sources from space that provide information to monitor and estimate the changes on the surface (Jiyuan et al. 2002; Masoud and Koike 2006; Yan et al. 2009). Data from the Landsat satellite images are frequently used in LULC research (Matinfar et al. 2011; Rozenstein and Karnieli 2011), particularly from the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+). The multispectral bands of ETM+ cover visible and near infrared and short-wave infrared spectral regions with a ground resolution of 30 m, the thermal infrared spectral region with a ground resolution of 60 m, and a panchromatic channel with a ground resolution of 15 m (Donegan and Flynn 2004; Xian et al. 2009). The main methods used for monitoring the LULC dynamics are image differencing, rationing, principle component analysis, and pos
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