Investigation of land use changes in Gorganrood catchment using Google Earth Engine platform

The purpose of this study is to investigate landuse changes in Gorganrood basin in 2001, 2010 and 2019. Using Landsat and Product-Modes satellite images, used maps were prepared using the classification method of random forest algorithm in Google Earth Engine. Satellite imagery was classified into eight classes including forest, cropland, shrubland, grassland, wetland, urban, barren, and water. The results showed that the highest landuse area in 2001, 2010 and 2019 is related to cropland, respectively, equal to 3150.58, 3403.8 and 3031.82 square kilometers, and lowest amount in 2001 is related to water with an area of 84.67 and in 2010 and 2010 is related to wetlands with an area of 167.98 and 118.7 square kilometers. Comparison of the results showed that the urban landuse study period in 2019 compared to 2001, it has grown by about 34% (341 square kilometers). Also, forest lands at a rate of 5.5 percent (148.92 kilometers), shrubs at a rate of 8.7 percent (135.79 kilometers) and arable land at a rate of 3.8 percent (118.76 kilometers) had a negative growth.