Land use/land cover changes in the coastal zone of Ban Don Bay, Thailand using Landsat 5 TM data

Land use/land cover of the Earth is changing dramatically because of human activities and natural disasters. Information about changes is useful for updating land use/land cover maps for planning and management of natural resources. Several methods for land use/land cover change detection using time series Landsat imagery data were employed and discussed. Landsat 5 TM colour composites of 1990, 1993, 1996 and 1999 were employed for locating training samples for supervised classification in the coastal areas of Ban Don Bay, Surat Thani, Thailand. This study illustrated an increasing trend of shrimp farms, forest/mangrove and urban areas with a decreasing trend of agricultural and wasteland areas. Land use changes from one category to others have been clearly represented by the NDVI composite images, which were found suitable for delineating the development of shrimp farms and land use changes in Ban Don Bay.