Modelling of land-use changes and their effects by climate change at the southern region of Port Said governorate, Egypt

Abstract

This paper investigates the application of remote sensing and geographical information systems for detecting land-use/land cover (LULC) changes and assessing its affect by climate change in the southern region of Port Said Governorate, Egypt. Three Landsat images (Landsat TM-5, ETM+7, and Landsat-8) have been utilized to quantify the changes from 1986 to 2016. The Landsat images are useful for this study because of its high spatial and spectral resolution. Calibration techniques, geometric, and atmospheric corrections were utilized to pre-processed the images. Hybrid unsupervised and supervised classification was used as a post-classification technique. Each method used was assessed and checked in the field. Six main and ten subclasses LULC units are recognized and mapping produced for different classes. Landsat images have shown 6 categories of land-use as following: bare land areas, crop vegetation areas, natural vegetation areas, fishpond areas, salt land areas and waterbody areas. The result showed the change that has occurred during 30 years of period. Positive changes areas are displayed in supervised classes of LULC in bare land areas of +51.3 km2; crop vegetation areas about +17.65 km2 and water bodies areas of +9.53 km2. While negative changes areas, are displayed in classes of LULC in natural vegetation areas about −37.16 km2; fish pond areas around −39.36 km2 and salts land areas around −0.58 km2. Unsupervised classification classes have the same way the expression of the increase and decrease and change a rate of changes in supervised classification classes of LULC.