Analysis of the Land Use and Cover Changes in the Metropolitan Area of Tepic-Xalisco (1973-2015) through Landsat Images

Land use and cover changes (LUCC) have been identified as one of the main causes of biodiversity loss and deforestation in the world. Fundamentally, the urban land use has replaced agricultural and forest cover causing loss of environmental services. Monitoring and quantifying LUCC are essential to achieve a proper land management. The objective of this study was to analyze the LUCC in the metropolitan area of Tepic-Xalisco during the period 1973-2015. To find the best fit and obtain the different land use classes, supervised classification techniques were applied using Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC), Support Vector Machines (SVMs) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). The results were validated with control points (ground truth) through cross tabulation. The best results were obtained from the SVMs method with kappa indices above 85%. The transition analysis infers that urban land has grown significantly during 42 years, increasing 62 km(2) and replacing agricultural areas at a rate of 1.48 km(2)/year. Forest loss of 5.78 km(2) annually was also identified. The results show the different land uses distribution and the dynamics developed in the past. This information may be used to simulate future LUCC and modeling different scenarios.