Pages: 49-71

Abstract

The appearance of coastal lands-use is constantly changing due to the transgression and regression of water bodies. This changing of coastal land-uses poses the necessity to continuous monitoring of them within certain temporal ranges to appropriately control the coastal resources. In this study the effect of transgression and regression of Gorgan gulf on the change of land-use was modeled and assessed using remotely sensed multitemporal imageries. To this end, at first two satellite images of Landsat 5 and Sentinel 2 taken in years1992 and 2017 respectively, were received. And after some preparations and required preprocessing implementations, they were classified by the performance of maximum likelihood classifier and the land-uses were extracted from the studied extent. The values of overall accuracy and coefficient of kappa were 0.94 and 0.92 respectively that were representing the acceptable accuracy of maps for extracted land-uses. The classified imageries, topography maps and roads` network were determined as the inputs of land-use change modelers for detecting land-use changes within recent 25years.The results of the current study showed that the water bodies of Gorgan gulf has experienced a reduction about 150 km2 due to regression of water surface and this reduction has resulted in increment of coastal, fallow and bare lands area. Moreover, the land bodies of agricultural, horticultural and postural lands have encountered significant decrease of the surface. Findings of this research can help the regional planners and environmental managers to appropriately do the managements of valuable resources of Gorgan gulf.