JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

Land use changes identifying to assess and monitor sensitive areas for sustainable planning and land management is essential. Remote sensing and the use of GIS technology as some of the most common methods in the world in monitoring land changes, especially, in the study of large areas. In this study, the trend of spatial land use changes in the area of Karun 3 dam was investigated. in the before and after the construction periods and dam intake using remote sensing and GIS over 27 years. In this study, the satellite imagery of Landsat 5 TM sensors from 1991 and 2008 and Landsat 8 OLI sensors in 2018 were analyzed and processed. Using object-oriented classification with land use maps for the three periods 1991, 2008, and 2018 with the overall accuracy of the Kappa index of 0.93 and 0.89 percent for 1991, 0.94, and 0.88 percent in 2008 and 0.93, respectively, and 0.86% in 2018 was prepared. The results showed that the water use of the region with an area of 37.68 square kilometers is increasing and agricultural lands and residential areas with an area of 1349.04 and 226.56, respectively, forest lands with an area of 1041.49 remained as the dominant cover of the region and rangelands by going through a decreasing trend of increase in both periods after forest use, with an area of 878.87, they had the largest area. According to the obtained results, it can be said that the construction of the Karun 3 dam has caused the flooding of agricultural lands and their conversion to another use, as a result of which the villagers were forced to migrate due to losing their jobs and abandoned residential areas become other uses.