Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
LANDSCAPE AND ECOLOGICAL ENGINEERING, cilt.17, sa.4, ss.439-457, 2021 (SCI-Expanded)
The objectives of this study are to determine the spatial and temporal land use/cover changes in a semi-arid agricultural basin (Develi Basin) after the implementation of an irrigation project and to understand how these changes affected the wetlands (Sultan Marshes) located in the basin. The changes were determined using multitemporal Landsat Thematic Mapper and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager imagery taken in 1987, 1998, 2007, and 2013. The images were classified into six information classes (grasslands/shrublands, croplands, permanent wetlands, water bodies, barren, and urban/built-up) using a hybrid classification method. Post-classification change detection was applied to determine the changes between different years. Overall, the accuracy of the classified images ranged from 85 to 94%. Grasslands/shrublands covered the largest area in the basin (63% in 2013), followed by croplands (32% in 2013). The area covered by water bodies, permanent wetlands, barren, and urban/built-up was 5% (in 2013). From 1987 to 2013, croplands expanded by 56%, while grasslands/shrublands declined by 15%. The areas occupied by water bodies decreased by 88% and permanent wetlands decreased by 4%. Urban/built-up areas expanded by 140%. The hydrologic regime of the Sultan Marshes wetland changed, which resulted in declines in water volumes by 85% and in water inflows by 55% from 2000 to 2015. Climatic variations during the 1987-2013 period were low and there was no apparent trend in precipitation and air temperature, which ruled out climatic conditions as one of the drivers of wetland changes. Economic and institutional factors supported the expansion of irrigated agriculture and animal husbandry in the basin and accelerated the expansion of croplands and conversion to industrial and fodder crops and orchards from traditional non-irrigated crops. Expansion of croplands and irrigated agriculture were the major drivers of the changes in the Sultan Marshes.