JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

Segzi, located in the east of Isfahan, is one of the most important centers of desertification crisis in Isfahan province. Human overtaking, land deformation and the presence of huge artificial topography in flat plain has created a very unpleasant landscape in the area. In this study, satellite images Cartosat-1 were used for mapping land degradation. By using DGPS, 9 points with appropriate distributions related to road junctions were selected. These points after Interior and exterior orientation determined as control points in Cartosat-1 pair images. To improve compliance, process of points development and production of 31 tie points was done. These points was coordinated in triangulation process and introduced as check points. Desirable RMSe, 0.3 pixel is obtained. Then DEM based on 40 points was prepared with 15×15m pixel size. The DEM, in GIS software was classified to 9 elavation classes by Natural Breaks method. The file of classified raster DEM convert to vector andcut and fill appeared as polygon that by encoding them, excavation map is produced in GIS with Kappa 0.95 and 0.97 overall accuracy. The Results of this study show that Cartosat-1 satellite images have ability for study of degraded lands and anthropogenic holes. The topographic changes caused the loss of natural vegetation and desertification in this area has developed.