ANALYZING LAND COVER CHANGES USING REMOTE SENSING AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN AKFIRAT AND ITS SURROUNDINGS (TUZLA - ISTANBUL), NORTH-WEST TURKEY

Abstract

In this study, land cover changes are analyzed by using of Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Akfirat and Its surroundings (Tuzla - Istanbul), North - West Turkey. Akfirat and its surroundings are located in Tuzlatown, southeast of Istanbul. Istanbul is the most populated city in the world with 13.483.052 population according to the recent 2011 census. The city will expandthe north - south and east - west direction of along the Bosporus and increasing theneed for new settlement areas in Istanbul. Akfirat and its surroundings where Istanbul Park Formula 1 racing pist located in this area are interesting example from southeast of Istanbul.For determining the land cover change in the study area, on-screen digitizing method is applied to Landsat satellite images acquired in Landsat 7 ETM + 2003 and Landsat 5 TM 2010 using ArcMap. The method consists of three major steps:(1) determining land cover classes with unsupervised classification method (2) the establishment of land cover change classes based on CORINE land coverclassification theme using on screen digitizing method (3) mapping of land coverchange. According to the obtained results, it was determined that the biggest change in the land cover from 2003 until 2010 occurred with the 271 hectare and 275,4% increase in the non - continuous urban residential land.