Abstract
Agricultural land use and land cover dynamics were investigated in the Araban district of Turkey during the periods 1984–2019 by the use of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Landsat‑TM and Landsat‑TIRS / OLI satellite imageries were used to determine land use and land cover changes. Using unsupervised classification method of ERDAS 8.3 software, three main agricultural activities were identified namely irrigated farming, dry farming, and horticultural / garden farming. The analysis has revealed that during the last three decades dry farming has decreased significantly by 14.69% (3802.14 ha) whereas horticultural/garden crops and irrigated farming lands have increased by 11.32% (667.19 ha) and 2.51% (2929.41 ha) respectively. Araban has been under intensive agricultural use due to its fertile soil and preference for horticultural crops such as pistachio, grapes and olives that provide more profit over dry farming crops such as wheat and barley has changed land use. Decrease in dry farming in a semi‑arid climate where Araban is located, has a potential ecological consequence, including a rapid drop of groundwater level, drying of wetlands and the disappearance of the biodiversity, thus, a necessary measures should be taken to implement an environmentally friendly, sustainable agriculture and settlement plan.
Highlights
According to the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), it is estimated that more than 800 million people in the world suffer from chronic hunger [1]
In this study we investigated agricultural land use in the Araban district between 1984 and 2019 using remote sensing data
Agricultural land use map was generated from Landsat TM satellite data of 1984 with 82% accuracy according to the kappa statistical method
Summary
According to the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), it is estimated that more than 800 million people in the world suffer from chronic hunger [1]. Lack of enough agricultural land is one of the most important reasons for billion people in the world (and in these geographical areas in particular) suffer‐. Ing from chronic hunger [2] In this context, sustainable management of agricultur‐. Accurate and planned management of agricultural areas is of great importance in a socio‐economic sense. The spatial and temporal patterns of a region are the result of both natural and anthropological factors [4, 5]. Spatial and temporal distribution of land use is one of the key components in detecting the extent of human influence on natural environment. The change in land use is due to different anthropogen‐
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