Abstract
Croplands are decreasing due to the expansion of urban areas into rural communities and to some extent due to sand accumulations. Increases in population numbers, new development, in addition to the accumulation of sand and soil salinity are the major driving force leading to abandonment and shrinking of cropland. The aim of this study was to investigate and assess to what extent agricultural lands are affected by urban development in the Al Hassa oasis, Eastern region in Saudi Arabia by employing Landsat time series data of years 1988, 2000 and 2017 as the main source of information. A set of ground truth, control points (GCPs) was also used besides population census data. Unsupervised classifications approach, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and change detection methods were used here. Urban area during 2000-2017 exhibits much higher increase compared to 1988-2000, while the arable lands declined to −3.4% in 1988-2000 and increased to 22% during 2000-2017. The data analysis results provided new accurate numerical information supported by a graphical representation in regard to the decrease and increase in urban and agricultural lands. Therefore the findings of this study should be considered by decision maker for improving and development the agriculture activities in rural and urban communities.
Highlights
The aim of this study was to investigate and assess to what extent agricultural lands are affected by urban development in the Al Hassa oasis, Eastern region in Saudi Arabia by employing Landsat time series data of years 1988, 2000 and 2017 as the main source of information
As the main purpose was to use satellite images to assess to what extent the arable lands in Al Hassa oasis were affected by urban development, three land use/cover categories were analyzed and mapped which include: agricultural lands, urban lands, and barren and sand dunes using unsupervised classification method
This decrease can be justified by the development of the first oilfields to the north and east of the oasis of 1950 to1989 which resulted in the social and economic change impact on arable lands in the Al Hassa oasis [22] and in the same time led to the increase in urban use that took place between the period 2000 to 2017
Summary
These phenomena are important problems globally, regionally, and locally in the rural landscape [1]. It has been found that acceleration of urbanization has a significant impact on the amount of land used for food production, and shifting sand, population increases and soil degradation [1] [5] may have the same effect. Saudi Arabia since the discovering of the petrol oil in 1923 has shifted from only agricultural dependence to industrial dependence. As a result, this shift has increased the urbanization process [7]. These increases had very consequences for the study area; accelerating urban growth (urbanization), led to high consumption of food and water, and increased internal migration
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