Long term investigation of land cover and variables of Van Lake basin

In Turkey; It is known that many social, economic and natural events have direct effects on Land Use and Land Cover (LULC). These effects cause serious changes on Land Use- Land Cover (LULC). In this study, Land Use Cover Change (LUCC) in 43 years were detected divided in Van Lake Basin (VLB) scale using Remote Sensing (RS) tools. Landsat earth observation satellite dataset was used to be base material and end of July or August images were obtained for each research years. Totally, 7 various LULC (residential, agriculture, meadow- pature, rock and bare lands, forest, reeds and water surface) were classified by object based classification approach. Classification accuracies were validated by old topographical maps, forest maps and field samplings. While the kappa accuracy for the 1973 data was 0.79, the kappa accuracy for the 2015 data was calculated as 0.95. Radiometric or atmospheric correction wasn't applied in order to post-classification approach was used. Van Lake Basin, according to the results of long-term change; While agricultural areas, residential areas and reeds increased, there were decreases in meadow-pasture areas, rocky-bare areas and forest areas. The water surfaces are slightly reduced, but the overall ratio is insignificant. LULCs and relationship with socio-cultural structure were evaluated in this study in Van Lake Basin (VLB) scale which is a good indicator of the Eastern Anatolian Region. So that outputs on the region were obtained to use other similar studies. As a result of these outputs, it was determined that socio-economic policies, climatic factors, natural disasters and region-specific security problems in the basin caused serious changes in LULCs. Key words: Remote Sensing, Van Lake Basin, Change analyses, Object based classification, Watershed management