The Study of Mazandaran Province Forest and Rangeland Vegetation Changes Trend by Satellite Images

Vegetation in any landscape reflects its health condition. Monitoring land use change and land cover plays a key role in environmental planning and management. Mazandaran province has always been considered by tourists due to its high tourism potential and consequently the vegetation, especially the forest, has been damaged. In this study, vegetation Contiguity and integrity in Mazandaran using Landsat satellite data with the help of metrics: fractal dimension, continuity, distance from nearest neighbor, total patch density, number of patches, edge density and the largest patch index and were studied over a period of 30 years (1988- 2018). Using multi-criteria evaluation method, digital layers of quantitative metrics were prepared and metrics became spatial map. Then the vegetation change map was prepared. The results showed that during the mentioned period, the numerical value of number of patches, patch density, edge density and distance from nearest neighbor increased and the index of the largest patch as well as the NDVI index decreased. The area of ​​the city has tripled compared to the base year and has increased by 26,000 hectares. Simultaneously with the increase of urban area, more than three thousand hectares of forest and rangeland vegetation area has been reduced and the cohesion and integration of forest and rangeland vegetation has decreased. The high rate of destruction of vegetation in terms of area in the desired range is belong to the east of the Mazandaran. This area has the highest number of tourists and villas per year.