Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
Abstract
Due to the land use changes like increased acreage for agriculture, digging deep and semi-deep wells has increased rapidly in recent decades in Marvast area as these wells are the main source of water supply at the present time unlike the past which rivers and aqueducts had this role. The main purpose of this study was to monitor land use changes on soil salinity using satellite images and GIS. Our other purpose was to investigate soil salinity changes in each land unit. With using satellite information from 1984 and 2002 years and proposed method for mapping soil salinity, land use and soil salinity maps were produced and then land use and soil salinity changes were studied. The study area had a total land area of 88980 hectares in Marvast, Yazd province. Results showed that land area of playas, deserts and rangelands respectively decreased to 7.8, 2.9 and 1.5 percent versus increase of agriculture and urban land area to 77.8 and 153 percent respectively. Also during this period, sever increase, increase and decrease of soil salinity was respectively recorded for playa, agricultural and rangelands, and deserts while no changes was detected for other regions. According to results, under ground water resources and saline waters of playas have undergone serious changes as with increase in average soil surface salinity, the ecosystem has shown negative changes.
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