A comparative study of the surface level changes of Urmia Lake and Aral Lake during the period of 1988 to 2018 using satellite images

Abstract

Internal lakes are considered as the ecological environments and the monitoring and evaluation of which can be considered as a matter in the national development and natural resources management (Rasouli et al., 2008). The changes in the water levels of lakes and the variations of the land use and cover along with the margins and the association of these changes with natural and human factors in Urmia Lake and Aral Lake are much-discussed and taken into consideration. In this study, a comparison was made between Urmia Lake and the Aral Lake over a period of 28 years, and the first one being suffered from declining water levels and drastic changes due to many factors, including, most specifically, human intrusion and mismanagement. For this purpose, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Landsat 5 and 8 satellite images were utilized for 1988 and 2018 and object-based image classification was applied in six classes, i.e. water body, arid, agriculture, salt marsh, salt wet and built with the acceptable accuracy of 89.23 (1988) and 85.8 (2018) percent for land use maps of the Urmia Lake and 92.46 (1988) and 95.15 (2018) percent for the Aral Lake. The overall accuracy of classification which represents the functioned credit classification for the maps should be more than 85% (Anderson et al., 1976). The classification showed that during the study period both of the lakes faced declination of water and increasing of salt levels. The trend of agricultural and built-in lands has been rising especially in Urmia Lake. Results indicated that the creation of the agricultural lands and human levels in recent decades has caused the increase in water consumption which in turn has reduced the amount of water entering to the Urmia Lake and has created hard conditions such as the dryness of the lake today.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

change detection / MODIS / Landsat / object-based image classification / Urmia Lake and Aral Lake / Iran

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