Detection of environmental and urban change using remote sensing and GIS

Abstract

This thesis is an example of how land use changes could be detected via high resolution remotely sensed data in GIS environment. In order to perform .change detection. IKONOS satellite images, belonging to 2001 and 2004, have been used. An automated Graphical User Interface (GUI) has been created for detection of environment. Different image enhancement techniques and a fuzzy inference system have been combined in the GUI. The detection results are classified according to some basic levels such as 20, 50 % and 70 %. Additionally, four different change detection algorithms have been applied, which are pixel-based, object based, feature based. These algorithms have been examined according to change detection levels with different image enhancement techniques.In this context, the primary objective of this thesis is to detect environmental changes regularly using RS and GIS in order to obtain up-to-date information about the urban areas.The secondary objective of the thesis is to compare the existing techniques with the newly developed GUI for change detection of environmental changes and to discuss the improvement in the overall results using information obtained with different detection techniques.The hypothesis of this thesis is to develop a new GIS based change detection system. Thus, it would be realized in the GIS environment efficiently and overlaid the results with digitized data in the same environment.Keywords: Remote Sensing, GIS, change detection, urban data, Izmir.