Monitoring of land use and land cover changes by using fuzzy supervised classification method: A case study of Antalya, Turkey

Antalya city's natural and cultural assets, arise from its geographic location, attracts attention of the world. Besides, it has productive soils which play important role for economic development. As a matter of fact, the importance of the city in agriculture and tourism sectors, led the urbanization rise above the country's average. Especially tourism activities began in the late 1980's, therefore extensively rising migration caused important changes in land cover and land use. This study aims to introduce these changes in the juristical boundaries of Antalya. In this scope, 2006 dated Landsat ETM, 2002 dated TM and 1987 dated Landsat TM image is used, at the year of 1987, city's annual population rise reached its maximum. In the study, the classification was based on fuzzy set theory and for monitoring purpose, post-classification comparisons method was applied. Class number and character was determined upon Coordination of Information on the Environment (CORINE) methodology. According to the results, about 10% of forested, heath land and shrub lands were destroyed, in addition 20% of agricultural lands were converted to urban areas during 19 years period from 1987 to 2006.