Integration Approach of Remote Sensing and GIS to Detect Land Use / Land Cover Change Dynamics in Himreen Lake and Surrounding Area

Abstract

The study area is located north of the central part of Iraq. Some small cities lay within the area and Diyala River runs across it. It includes Himreen Lake in its middle part. The aims of this study was to develop and use applied approach for monitoring, detecting, analyzing and producing land use/cover change maps in Himreen and surrounding area during the period from 1984-2016, using remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) techniques, as valuable contribution with high accuracy to planning and management in many fields of developments in the study area. Remote sensing techniques are used to produce Land Use/Cover (LULC) map for the study area using Landsat-8 satellite (ETM) images acquired in 2013. These images have the best compatibility properties for this purpose than other images attained in different dates, using USGS classification developed procedure. (LULC) map is produced depending on the maximum Likelihood supervised classification (ML) of (ETM) images with assessment accuracy of (97.44%) and (0.9707) kappa coefficient. In other hand, the change detection of water class in Himreen Lake has depended on the vector map of Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) of six scenes Landsat satellite series (ETM) images for the periods (1984, 1992, 2002, 2006, 2013, and 2016). The (LULC) raster and water index image are converted to vector structure, using ArcGIS v.10 software in order to create a digital (LULC) map.Three main classes of (LULC) are recognized in the mapped area. Those are Barren Land class (Code 7), the Barren Land Class is divided into four subclasses, which are Sandstone, Claystone, Mixed Exposed Land, and Bare soil. Agricultural Land class (Code 2), the Agricultural Land class is divided into two subclasses, which are Harvested Land and Idle Land. and Water class (Code 5), the Water class is represented by Himreen Lake. The mapped area revealed that the Barren Land Class covers the largest area, the Agricultural Land class and the Water class cover the smaller and smallest areas respectively. The Agricultural Land is represented in the eastern part of the mapped area in which the flood plain extends. Change detection of water in Himreen Lake is represented by increase and decrease periods. Three increase periods during years (1984-1992, 2002-2006, and 2013-2016) and two decrease periods during years (1992-2002, and 2006-2013) are detected. It is noticed that the decrease of water is referred to many reasons such as, shortage in rainfall, decrease in Diyala River flow release from upstream country, as well as the random irrigation acts in the study area.