Environmental Science and Pollution Research

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12522-8

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Detection and prediction of lake degradation using landscape

metrics and remote sensing dataset
Ali Azareh 1 & Elham Rafiei Sardooi 2 & Hamid Gholami 3 & Amirhosein Mosavi 4,5 & Ali Shahdadi 1 & Saeed Barkhori 2

Received: 4 December 2020 / Accepted: 13 January 2021

# The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE part of Springer Nature 2021

Abstract
Monitoring changes in natural ecosystems is considered essential to natural resource management. Despite the global importance
of the lakes’ quality monitoring, there is currently a research gap in the simultaneous predictive modeling of lakes’ land-use
changes and ecosystem measurements. In the present study for projecting the water bodies of lakes and their surrounding
ecosystems, the land-use changes and the landscape analysis of different periods, i.e., 1987, 2002, 2018, and 2030, are studied
using remote sensing data and various metrics. The trend of land-use and landscape changes is projected for 2030. The results
indicate significant degradation of rangelands and forests due to the conversion to agriculture and construction and the declining
trend of lakes’ water body and their transformation to salt lake and salt lands. The increase of agricultural lands and the overuse of
groundwater wells upstream of the lakes could be one of the reasons for this decline. Decreasing the lakes’ water body and
subsequently increasing salt lands are considered a severe threat to human health and the ecosystem services of the lakes. Besides,
the dust generated by salt lands could also decrease crop yield in the study area.

Keywords Lake degradation . Land-use change . Landscape metrics . Remote sensing . Artificial intelligence . Machine learning

Introduction affecting ecosystem components and biodiversity (Davies

Land-use change is the most significant stimulus of environ-
mental changes over time (Lambin et al. 2000; Nielsen and
Zöbisch 2001; Jian et al. 2003; Wondie et al. 2011; Perring
et al. 2016; Tolessa et al. 2017). In recent years, lakes are one
of the most critical environmental factors that have been en-
dangered and have been regarded as valuable water resources
et al. 2007; Mendoza et al. 2011; Singh et al. 2017; Ren
et al. 2019; Ansari and Golabi 2019). Climate change and
continuous droughts, ignoring environmental water require-
ments of lakes because of dams, increasing agricultural lands,
digging unauthorized wells, and the overuse of groundwater
wells upstream of lakes have been considered as change prin-
ciple drivers of lakes (Arsanjani et al. 2015; Sajedipour et al.

Responsible Editor: Philippe Garrigues

* Elham Rafiei Sardooi 1

Department of Geography, University of Jiroft, Kerman, Iran
ellrafiei@ujiroft.ac.ir
2
* Amirhosein Mosavi Department of Ecological Engineering, Faculty of Natural
amirhosein.mosavi@tdtu.edu.vn Resources, University of Jiroft, Kerman, Iran

Ali Azareh 3
Department of Range and Watershed Management, University of
aliazareh@ujiroft.ac.ir Hormozgan, Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan, Iran
Hamid Gholami
4
hgholami@hormozgan.ac.ir Environmental Quality, Atmospheric Science and Climate Change
Research Group, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh
Ali Shahdadi City, Vietnam
alishahdadi@ujiroft.ac.ir
5
Saeed Barkhori Faculty of Environment and Labour Safety, Ton Duc Thang
barkhori.s@ujiroft.ac.ir University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

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