1999-2006Vientiane Laos Land-Use Change Analysis Using Remote Sensing Imagery

Abstract:Vientiane is the economic, political and cultural center of Laos communist state. It is the largest industrial and commercial city in Laos. Vientiane’s land cover changed significantly with the rapid city expansion around2000. But not all changes are beneficial; some changes have negative impact on the sustainable development of the city and even countries, and even become a bottleneck for further development of the city in the future. There fore, in this thesis Vientiane, Laos during1999and2006Landsat TM images had been collected, the changed data had been extracted using both combination method and post-classification method, based on the changed data, change distribution and reasons are analyzed. The main work and contribution of this thesis are listed as follows:1. The remote sensing imagery of the study area is collected and preprocessed. The method of is used to extract the land cover change information in Vientiane, Laos from1999to2006is extracted using both the post-classification method and a combination method, i.e., combination Gray-ratio, NDVI and PCA.2. By comparing the combination method and post-classification method for the accuracy of land cover information in Vientiane, the higher precision result data is gotten, i.e., the result of the combination method. Thus land cover change map in Vientiane from1999to2006was achieved using the combination method.3. Then the changes of the five main types of ground cover in Vientiane, Laos (urban, agriculture, forests, water and sand) from1999to2006are analyzed and the statistical analysis chart of the changes are concluded. Furthermore the reasons causing to the changes are analyzed.