Research Information System
ACRS 2015: The 36 th Asian Conference on Remote Sensing “Fostering Resilient Growth in Asia”, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, 19 - 23 October 2015, pp.1-2, (Full Text)
Istanbul is one of the largest cities of Turkey covering a total area of approximately 57,500 km2 and with a population of about 13.6 million according to the 2011 population census showing an incredible increase compared to 4.7 million according to 1980 census reports. During last thirty years, population increased about 3.1 times. In
1980, there were 19 districts inside Istanbul province borders? however management difficulties and political reasons led the province to be divided into 39 districts. 25 of these districts were located in European side while 14 of them are located in Anatolian side of Istanbul. As a result of the population growth and rapid urbanization, the
city has expanded very fast, causing important changes in land use/cover characteristics. Vegetation is the most and negatively affected land cover class in Istanbul among others. In this study, vegetation changes in 39 Istanbul districts of between 1984 and 2011 were analyzed using Landsat 5 TM satellite images. Satellite images were registered to each other in order to ensure the locational and geometric
accuracy in multitemporal analysis. In the next step, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) images were calculated from registered images. NDWI images were then subtracted from NDVI images in order to minimize the detractive effects of water bodies on NDVI. All of the 39 districts were subset from modified NDVI images for the dates 1984 and 2011. Mean values of NDVI for each district were calculated and these values were weighted with comparison of one districts mean NDVI value to others. In last step, vegetation change from 1984 to 2011 for each district was calculated using liner interpolation method and district scale vegetation change density map was created for whole Istanbul. Results showed that,
methodology presented in this study can simply and effectively determine the spatial distribution of vegetation and vegetation density change in rapidly urbanized cities.