Document Type : Research Paper

Author

• Khosrou Khajeh (Translator)

Abstract

Recently, in Mexico, using digital maps of the 1970s, 1993 and 2000, a profitable data bank was established to measure the extent and characteristics of Land Use and Cover Change (LUCC) across the country. In order to advance this plan, an existing map of land use and cover available on a scale of 1:250,000 was revised in order to determine the input data in terms of scale, classification scheme and mapping method. The digital maps prepared in three different dates (i.e., late 1970s, 1993 and 2000) were merged into a GIS database after being reviewed, evaluated and corrected. In order to improve the credibility of the data bank, efforts were made to evaluate the accuracy of the method and the digitization procedure and to detect and correct the unpredictable changes resulting from thematic errors in the map. The digital maps were put onto each other to create LUCC maps and calculate transition matrices and conversion rates. Based on this data bank, the deforestation rate between the years 1976 and 2000 was estimated as 0.25% and 0.76% per year for the moderate and tropical forests respectively.

Keywords

• Land Use Cover Change
• Deforestation
• map preparation
• GIS
• precision
• Mexico