Abstract
Changes in land use and land cover are the result of complex interactions between humans and their environment. This study examines land use and land cover changes in the Lower Neretva Region between 1990 and 2020. Political and economic changes in the early 1990s resulted in changes in the landscape, both directly and indirectly. Multispectral image processing was used to create thematic maps of land use and land cover for 1990, 2005, and 2020. Satellite images from Landsat 5, Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 were the main source of data. Land use and land cover structure was assessed using a hybrid approach, combining unsupervised and manual (visual) classification methods. An assessment of classification accuracy was carried out using a confusion matrix and kappa coefficient. According to the results of the study, the percentage of built-up areas increased by almost 33%. Agricultural land and forests and grasslands also increased, while the proportion of swamps and sparse vegetation areas decreased.
Highlights
Humans have been changing the environment for millennia
Jogun et al (2017) examined the changes in land cover in northern Croatia from 1981 to 2011, and the results showed an increase in natural vegetation and an expansion of built-up areas
The main objectives of this study are to determine the structure of land use and land cover for the years 1990, 2005, and 2020 using satellite images from Landsat 5, Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 and to identify changes that occurred during this period
Summary
Humans have been changing the environment for millennia. Throughout most of human history, man has been a hunter-gatherer, and the discovery of fire began the first significant environmental change (Grigg, 1987). The world population grew rapidly, the economy grew globally, and urbanisation accelerated. All those changes and technological advances led to such a dramatic impact that it is almost impossible to find parts of the Earth that have not been touched by mankind in some way (Lu et al, 2004; Horvat, 2013). It is widely recognised that land use and land cover changes represent a link between social processes (economic, political, and cultural) on one hand and the environment on the other (Rayner et al, 1994; Cvitanović, 2014a; Msofe et al, 2019). The Earth has been continuously observed from orbit for more than half a century, so the basis for analysing historical land use and land cover changes has been thoroughly developed (Longley et al, 2005; Campbell, 2006; Valožić, 2015; Jogun et al, 2017)
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