Detection of Temporal changes in vegetation cover in Al-Hassa Oasis, Saudi Arabia by Remote Sensing

Yousef Aldakheel and Abdurrhman Alhussieni
Water Studies Center, King Faisal University, Al-Hassa, Saudi Arabia



• The aims of remote sensing techniques are to explore and monitor earth resources: soil, sub soil, water, vegetation and minerals. Moreover, the aim of remote sensing can be extended to monitor and record the changes that might occur to these resources, either because of human activities or natural processes. This study aims to use remotely sensed data to study the state of vegetation cover in Al-Hassa oasis during the past ten years and to assess the impact of the environmental changes resulted from the operation of the Irrigation and Drainage Project (IDP).
  
  In this work vegetation, soil salinization, and urban area of Al-Hassa oasis will be monitored by analysis of multi-temporal Landsat TM images over the period 1987-1998. This includes image overlay, differencing, principal component analysis, and temporal classification.
  
  This procedure allowed the study of the dynamics of environmental changes that could happen to soil and vegetated area over the study area. Such changes might happen either naturally or man-made which can contribute to or result in dessertification of a particular region.