The Application of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System in Environmental Changes Studies

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Studies in Surveying and Mapping Science (SSMS) Volume 1 Issue 3, September 2013

www.as-se.org/ssms

The Application of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System in Environmental Changes Studies (Case Study: The East of Mazandaran) V. Gholami Assistant professor, Department of Range and Watershed Management, University of Guilan, Faculty of Natural Resources, Sowmeh Sara, Iran. Gholami.vahid@gmail.com Abstract Cartography is applied in providing different kinds of maps such as landuse, slope and DEM and so on, which is very time consuming. Today, many maps are provided using Remote Sensing (RS) in a short time with in an acceptable accuracy. In this study, ASTER and ETM+ (LANDSAT) images have been used to provide landuse, DEM and drainage density maps. Kasilian Watershed (northern Iran) landuse has been provided using supervised classification technique and ETM+ image. Then ETM+ image ability was investigated in terms of different land uses separation. Also, Digital Elevation Model (DEM) was generated using ASTER image in the south of Gorgan Gulf and then DEM accuracy was investigated. Channels network map was extracted analyzing topographic conditions using DEM in GIS (ArcView) and the results for accuracy were controlled and confirmed comparing these results with those of topography maps. The results proved the capability of RS in environmental studies and in providing different maps. Keywords Remote Sensing; Cartography; Environmental Changes; Iran

Introduction Nowadays, remote sensing (RS) has caused many significant changes in a variety of natural sciences. Using the satellite data, a lot of studies have been done worldwide. Cartography has also been developed to provide different kinds of thematic maps such as hand use, slope, aspect and channels network. Some maps such as the maps of land use are one of the necessities of the natural scientists for future programming. Surveying is one of the main method for providing the maps, but surveying and mapping an area is costly and time consuming. Nowadays, using satellite images, the land use maps and the other maps can be made in a short time by different techniques. Traditional methods

to gather demographic data, censuses, and analysis of environmental samples are not adequate to cope with multi complex environmental studies, since many problems are often presented in environmental issues and great complexity of handling the multidisciplinary data; new technologies are developed like satellite remote sensing and Geographical Information Systems (Berlanga-Robles and Ruiz-Luna, 2002 ; Maktav et al., 2005), Using Remote Sensing, (Anderson et al., 1976; Gunaid et al., 2013; Weicheng et al., 2002) investigated the landuse changes and land cover. Tahir et al. (2013) investigated land use and land cover changes in Mekelle City, Ethiopia (north east Africa) over a period of 25 years using remotely sensed data. Multi-temporal satellite data of Landsat was used to map and monitor urban land use changes occurring during 1985 and 2010. A pixel base supervised image classification was used to map land use land cover classes for maps of both time set. Phukan et al. (2013) investigated land use changes in Golaghat district of Assam using satellite images of 1989 and 2009. The study has revealed that the major changes occurred in cropland and scrubland. The reason behind this is that the area under scrubland is converted into agricultural or crop zone (Phukan et al., 2013) Also, Tucker et al. (2001) extracted channels network by using Digital Elevation Model. Toutin (2001, 2002), Zollinger (2003) and Tokunaga et al. (1996) produced the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) from ASTER satellite stereoscopic. Their studies proved the RS capabilities in investigations on environmental conditions. Besides that, Hiranoa et al. (2003) investigated and controlled the accuracy of the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) made of ASTER data. Binford et al. (2001) investigated the efficiency of the obtained

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