Turkey - EOPOWER

1 SUCCESS STORY
LAND USE/LAND COVER CHANGE DETECTıON ıN ıGNEADA
Because of their ecological, biological, environmental and
economic importance, flooded (longos) forests have
multiple roles in the landscape.
This research took place in a floodplain forest in north-west
Turkey, in the well-known Igneada Region, one of the
important areas of botanical areas in Turkey (Fig.1). İğneada
and the surrounding area has been recognized as an
important biodiversity hotspot due to their unique
characteristics. Because of the sensitive ecosystems present
in the Igneada region, part of it was previously protected as a
Nature Protection Park, Natural Site, and Wildlife
Protection Area. The determination of land use/land cover
changes is of key importance for efficient management of the
selected region.
This study was conducted within the EnviroGRIDS Project,
which is an EU Funded 7th Framework Programme under
Grant Agreement 226740 (“Building Capacity for a Black Sea
Catchment Observation and Assessment System Supporting
Sustainable Development”).
Fig.1 Study Area, Igneada
The most common land use/land cover categories at the
selected site are: Water Surfaces, Forest, Flooded Forest,
Wetlands, Sand Dunes, Settlements, Plantation area, Bare
Lands and Agricultural Areas (Fig.2). KEYS TO SUCCESS
• Vision
Willingness to obtain results that are
valuable for decision makers and end-users.
• Innovation
Earth observation methods used are more
cost effective than, and complementary to,
traditional field methods of land use/land
cover monitoring and change detection.
• REPLICATION POTENTIAL
Use of freely available remote sensing data
and local expertise that can be replicated.
• SOCIETAL BENEFIT
Willingness to improve land use/land cover
change detection mapping in Turkey.
Fig.2 Land Use Land Cover Categories of Igneada
2 SUCCESS STORY
System of land use/land cover change
detection, based on remote sensing
Maximum likelihood supervised classification methods were
conducted using freely available Landsat 5 TM datasets
(Fig.3). Field studies were carried out to determine various
land cover/land use categories using hand-hold GPS.
The collected data allowed the mapping of land use/land
cover categories for the years 1984, 1990, 2000 and 2010
based on detailed fieldwork (Fig. 4).
The deliverables are: classification maps, assessment of
classification accuracy, and change detection maps.
Fig. 3 Methodology of the study
RESULTS
! Land use/land cover changes between the
years 1984 and 2010.
! Spatial and temporal analysis of landscape
patterns
using
multi-temporal
imagery
enabled identification of landscape distribution
in the selected region and monitoring of the
dynamics for Igneada.
! Exploration of the potential of freely available
satellite remote sensing data in producing
landscape maps with a special focus on the
Igneada flooded forest.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Prof. Seval Sözen
Istanbul Technical University
Department of Geomatics Engineering
34469 Istanbul Turkey
tel.: +90 212 285 34 14
http://www.geomatik.itu.edu.tr
Fig. 4 Classification results for the years 1984, 1990, 2000
and 2010