Using Landsat data for detection the land cover changes between 2000 and 2021 in Al Najaf City, Iraq
Keywords:
Landsat, LULC, Supervise classification, Kappa coefficient, Overall accuracyAbstract
Al Najaf city has encountered critical changes in the land use land cover LULC caused by human practices. This exacerbated land debasement and ecological problems. This research evaluates the rate and extent of changes in LULC Over the course of twenty-one years 21 years using a geographic information system (GIS) as well as remote sensing data to secure a quantitative comprehension of spatiotemporal elements of LULC. The multi-temporal data of Landsat 5 TM in 2000 and Landsat 8 OLI in 2021, were utilized to assess the land cover maps. The supervised classification of both remote sensing images was performed for the years 2000 and 2021 to extract the spatial pattern of land cover change. Overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient were calculated using 200 reference points. Change detection results utilizing Land Change Modeler between (2000-2021) showed a critical increment (7.75%) in the agricultural region from (25.11%) in 2000 to (32.86%) in 2021, followed by a remarkable increase (3.03%) in the urban zone from (6.36%) in 2000 to (9.39%) in 2021. On the contrary, bare soil and desert cover declined drastically by 8.66% and 8.43 % respectively. Based on change analyses, 129 km2 and 71 km2 of desert land and bare soil respectively were converted to Agriculture. This indicates a remarkable expansion in urban and agricultural land in this area. The other categories showed a slight transition of the land cover between 2000 and 2021. The overall accuracy results for 2000 and 2021were about 90.1 and 92 respectively, whereas kappa index for every year were 0.90. These work results can uphold decision-production towards reclamation proportions of land debasement and long-haul natural protection in the area.