Assessing Two Decades of Land Use/Land Cover Changes in the Uluabat Lake Ramsar Site using Multi-Temporal Satellite Imagery

Abstract

The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands designates over 2,000 sites of international importance, providing crucial habitats for diverse species. Uluabat Lake faces anthropogenic pressures such as urbanization, agriculture, and industrialization, affecting its ecological integrity. The land use/land cover (LULC) changes in the lake's catchment area were assessed using multi-temporal Landsat 7 and Landsat 9 satellite images from 2002 and 2022, along with 2019 management plans. Data were pre-processed with ENVI and stored in ERDAS Imagine program. Then, pixel-based image analysis with maximum likelihood classification (MLC) was employed to generate LULC maps and evaluated classification accuracy using ground truth data and the kappa coefficient. The results revealed a 15.8% reduction in lake area, from 136.1 km² in 2002 to 114.5 km² in 2022, primarily due to sediment transport from surrounding agricultural land and tributary streams. Urban-agricultural and reed-swamp areas increased by 74.7% and 59.6%, respectively, while shrubs and forests declined by 35.64%, largely from reed conversion to agriculture in the Mustafakemalpaşa River delta. Overall classification accuracy ranged from 88.2% to 91% with a kappa coefficient of 0.81 to 0.82, respectively. These transformations highlight the increase in reed and swamp areas and the decrease in lake area, emphasizing the need for effective conservation and management practices.