Land Use/Land Change Detection of the Past 30 Years (1988–2018), Using Landsat Imagery—Around the Junction Between River Nile and River Atbara (Sudan)

Abstract

This study aimed to detect land use/land change around the junction area of the River Nile and River Atbara over the past 30-year period, within fifteen-year intervals (1988–2003 and 2003–2018). The remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) are useful techniques to assess this great worldwide event. Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM)/of LT05 1988/12/07, Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) of LE07 2003/12/17 and Operational Land Imager (OLI) of LC08 2018/10/31 were used for image classifications. However, the supervised classification has been used to perform powerful mapping of land use/land change classification and to categorize the study area in different land cover features. Five land use/land change classes were specified: Vegetation (cultivated land), waterbody, bare ground, built-up, and rocky areas. The final output maps have been produced using ArcGIS 10.5. The change detection analysis results proved that the vegetation of cultivated land had increased gradually during the mentioned period, i.e., in 1988, it was over 135.91 km² (6.25%), in 2003 169.78 km² (7.81%), and at 2018 has become 447.46 km² (20.58%). Also, the built-up areas have grown up as (8.76%), (9.88%), and (17.24%) in the years of 1988, 2003, and 2018, respectively. The land use/land change accuracy has been evaluated by using Error Matrix (ERRMAT) operation in TerrSet Geospatial Monitoring and Modeling System software, in which the results of Kappa Index of Agreement (KIA) were almost in perfect agreements.