Havacılık ve Uzay Teknolojileri Dergisi (Jan 2015)
DETERMINATION OF URBAN CHANGE IN THE VICINITY OF THE GULF OF IZMIT USING LINEAR SPECTRAL UNMIXING METHOD AND LANDSAT DATA
Abstract
One of the major impacts of globalization has been the rapid expansion of urban areas. Urban areas are dynamic, with the potential to continually increase in size. Sometimes urban growth cannot be controlled; in such cases, expanding urban areas may damage natural resources and instigate land-cover and land-use change. Therefore, urban areas should be monitored periodically. Remote sensing is a reliable tool to monitor urban growth. In this study, the vicinity of the Gulf of Izmit, one of the most industrialized areas of Turkey, was selected as the study area. As a method, the study area was valuated for urban growth using spectral mixture analysis (SMA) method. Remotely sensed images provide a fundamental tool of land-cover and land-use maps. However, this source lacks spatial detail because each pixel contains only one value for the denoted area. Heterogeneous areas, including urban areas, may therefore result in misclassifications. By unmixing a pixel into its components, it is possible to enable a more accurate classification of the area. SMA uses linear mixture models to provide physical representations of land surface reflectance. In this study, SMA was applied to LANDSAT images for three different dates (1984, 1999 and 2009). The results of the study show changes in land cover and urban growth areas, which were precisely determined using SMA.
