Monitoring Land Cover Change Using Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques: a Case Study of Al-Dalmaj Marsh, Iraq

Abstract

Al-Dalmaj marsh and the near surrounding area is a very promising area for energy resources, tourism, agricultural and industrial activities. Over the past century, the Al-Dalmaje marsh and near surroundings area endrous from a number of changes. The current study highlights the spatial and temporal changes detection in land cover for Al-Dalmaj marsh and near surroundings area using different analyses methods the supervised maximum likelihood classification method, the Normalized  Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Geographic Information Systems(GIS),  and Remote Sensing (RS). Techniques spectral indices were used in this study to determine the change of wetlands and drylands area and of other land classes, through analyses Landsat images for different three years (1990, 2003, 2016). The results indicated that there was an annual increase in vegetation was from 1990 with 980.68 km², and 1420.35km² in 2003 to 2072.98km² in 2016. Whereas, the annual water coverage was about 185.95km² in 1990 then dropped to 68.27km² in 2003, and rose to 180.23 km² in 2016. The water coverage increasing was on the account of barren lands areas, which were significantly decreased. These collected data can be used to deliver accurate information of the values of vegetation,water, wetlands and drylands sustainability of resources which can be used to make plans to increase tourism and protected areas by using barren lands which cannot be reclaimed for agriculture, and cultivate a new renewable energy can be set up  as solar power stations.