Oued Lakhdar watershed (Morocco), monitoring land use/cover changes: remote sensing and GIS approach

Abstract

Landsat is a series of Earth-observation satellites jointly managed by NASA and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) that capture multispectral images of the Earth’s surface dating back to the 1970s, providing a valuable tool for tracking changes in land cover over time. In this study, Landsat satellite data were combined with remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies to monitor land cover changes in the Oued Lakhdar watershed, which covers an area of 1,638 km2. Landsat satellite data for the years 1987, 1994, 2004, 2014, and 2021 were used, and the maximum likelihood method was applied in ArcGIS software version 10.4.1 to classify land components. The classification was validated using total accuracy, the kappa index, Google Earth, and terrain knowledge. The results show remarkable changes in land cover, with an increase in bare soil and irrigated crops between 1987 and 2021, especially in the last six years, totaling 0.672 km2/yr and 15.028 km2/yr of the study area, respectively, and a decrease in water bodies and dense forests, totaling −0.941 km2/yr and −30.046 km2/yr, respectively. Water retention coefficient analysis indicates that the watershed is anthropized and has a low retention capacity. This study provides valuable information for land use planning and management in the Oued Lakhdar watershed (Morocco).

Keywords

• Land use/cover
• GIS and remote sensing
• Oued Lakhdar watershed
• kappa index
• water retention capacity