Analysis of Land Use Changes in Malayer County Using Landscape Metrics

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Graduated Master of Land evaluation and Land Planning, Faculty of Natural Resources and Environments, Malayer University, Malayer, Iran.

2 , Assistant Professor Faculty of Natural Resources and Environments, Malayer University, Malayer, Iran.

3 Associate Professor, Faculty of Natural Resources and Environments, Malayer University, Malayer, Iran

Abstract

Human activities such as agriculture and urban development (particularly settlement expansion and road construction) as well as biological and environmental processes, structure and pattern of the landscape. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of land use changes on the landscape pattern of Malayer in the twenty years term. In this research, Landsat satellite imagery of 1997, 2007 and 2017, and the RS for producing land use maps and FRAGSTATS software were used to calculating and quantify Landscape metrics.The metrics used include CA, MPS, LSI, LPI, NP and IJI. The results showed that from 1997 to 2017 the area of residential use and water resources decreased and the area of agricultural use and bayer lands increased. So that increased of the residential use of 75373.11 hectares with an area of 14675.04 and water resources with an area of 23918.31 hectares with a total area of 248.76, the water resources of this city have decreased by 32/58 percent over the course of twenty years, and the Bayer lands from 66717150 in 1997 to 1820,86 in 2017, and agricultural use has increased from 13,30029 to 38388 in area. Also, decreased NP, LSI, and IJI in whole landscape.

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