Monitoring of temporal changes of land use in Mersin great plain protection area by using remote sensing and geographical information systems

The planning of protected areas is carried out by considering the balances of the use, protection and sustainability. In order to be able to make rational decisions that will guide development properly, it is necessary to use remote sensing technology for monitoring protected areas during or after planning, and monitoring the changes in land use. Aerial photographs of 1969 and Google Earth satellite images of 2017 of Mersin Büyük Ova Conservation Area were used to produce past and present land cover, land use and land change (LU/LC) maps using remote sensing and GIS technologies, and their changes in time were investigated. Visual interpretation, map and table calculation processes were applied. Spatial and temporal analysis of the classification data, obtained with ArcGIS 9.3 GIS software, was performed. The land use hierarchy in the study was based on the CORINE method. The studied area is totaly 16541 ha. The result of the study revealed, Irrigated Agricultural Areas covered 3.24 ha in 1969, while 2597.94 ha in 2017, increasing by 80085%, Industrial and Commercial Units covering from 2.75 ha to 68.64 ha, increasing by 2396%, Permanent City Structure from 155.87 ha to 1250,86 ha with an 702.50% increase. The sparse forests land decreased from 2569.96 ha to 397.47 ha area by 84.53% and the dense forest areas from 3993.38 to 803.2 ha by 79.88% and a total of 5362.67 ha area of forests has been converted to other uses. As a result of the study, Irrigated Agricultural Areas covered an area of 3.24 ha in 1969, while covering an area of 2597.88 ha in 2017, an increase of 80085%, Industrial and Commercial Units increased from 2.75 ha to 68.64 ha, increasing by 2396%, Permanent City Structure.