Land Cover change detection by using Remote Sensing - A Case Study of Zlatibor (Serbia)

Change detection is a process of detecting differences with the objects or phenomena which are observed in the different time intervals. In this study different methods of analyzing satellite images are presented, with the aim to identify changes in land cover in a certain period of time (1985 - 2013). The area observed in this study is the region of mountain Zlatibor (Serbia) with its surroundings. The methods represented in this study are vegetation indices differencing, Supervised classification and Object based classification. These methods gave different results in term of land cover area, and it is generally concluded that supervised classification gave the most accurate results with the images of medium spatial resolution. The results of this study can be used for urban and environmental planning. All information lead to conclusion that the surface under the forests is reduced for about 4% (or about 1000 ha) while the built up area has doubled (grown about 600 ha) during the examined period. The results also highlights the importance of change detection techniques in land cover for the areas that are developing rapidly, such as Zlatibor study area.