CHANGE DETECTION OF URBAN AREAS IN THE ARDABIL PROVINCE DURING THE LAST 5 DECADES USING AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY AND LANDSAT IMAGES

摘要

Population in Iran is growing very fast. Ardabil province is a new established province and under theses circumstances, agricultural and natural areas changing to residential and industrial areas. This study aimed to evaluated the amount of change in urbanized areas during the last 5 decades using Landsat ETM+, 1∶55000 aerial photos and 1∶50000 topographic maps. Results showed: 1) during the last 50 years, in all cities about 3.6 to 12.8 times the area of the cities have been increased. 2) By considering the historical documents and elderly people views, it was recognized that the most of the changes were happened from the altering of agricultural land uses to the urban and industrial areas. Moreover, it should be noted that these changes were more accelerated after becoming Ardabil as an independent province in 1994. Furthermore, the used Landsat image was acquired in 2002 and in recent 9 years some agricultural lands have also changed to the city and industrial areas, which were not included in this study. In continue of this study, by the selection of more precise temporal images the amount of changes will be calculated more accurately. By the continue of this change and by including industrial suburbs and distributed factories on the Ardabil plains, changing agricultural land uses to the city and industrial areas causes growing more concerns from the environmental and agricultural products perspectives.