Abstract:
The Birmingham Metropolitan Area experienced land use land cover (LULC) change over the last three decades, such as the development of urban area, the development of transportation system, deforestation, and rise of population. The main purpose of the thesis is to model and analyze the LULC change through last three decades in Birmingham area, and also simulate the LULC in next three decades. Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) data from U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is used for investigating the LULC in Birmingham area. Supervised Classification is used; the maximum overall accuracy is 86.33%. Drivers such as transportation, topographic measures, population and income, location measures are analyzed. Remote sensing indices are also derived from Landsat data, such as NDVI, NDBI, MNDWI, and LST. Pearson's Correlation test is run among the LULC proportion, drivers within counties and census tracts. Finally, the cellular automation model SLEUTH is used to simulate the future pattern of LULC. The results shows the Birmingham experienced a significant LULC change in last three decades. Transportation and slope are two main factors in terms of LULC change. In summary, the thesis completes a systematic LULC classification in Birmingham area in last three decades, and uses different methods to model and analyze LULC and eventually simulate the LULC pattern in next three decades.
