Detecting land use changes at the urban fringe from remotely sensed images in Ankara, Turkey

Monitoring land-use changes in settlement areas are of great importance for planning in order to assess urban development trends. In this study, land-use changes at the urban fringe was detected from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) images in Batikent, Ankara, Turkey. Seven land-use change classes were detected through a multidate classification of Landsat TM images obtained in 1985 and l995 with an overall accuracy of 80.9 per cent. In order to minimize the classification uncertainty, the existing urban features and those areas where no change was expected were excluded from change detection operation. The multidate classification was found to be an effective technique to detect overall land-use changes both in size and nature providing the general development trend in the study area. The study demonstrates that the area experienced a significant rural-to-urban conversion in the l0-year period between 1985 and 1995 and this trend will seem to continue.