Comparative Analysis of the Land Use and Land Cover Changes in Different Governorates of Oman using Spatiotemporal Multi-spectral Satellite Data
It addresses land management and environmental monitoring for resource planners in Oman, but is incremental as it applies existing methods to a new region.
This study analyzed and compared land use and land cover changes across governorates in Oman from 2016 to 2021 using Sentinel-2 satellite data and supervised machine learning algorithms, enabling effective evaluation of changes such as in water bodies, crops, and urban areas.
Land cover and land use (LULC) changes are key applications of satellite imagery, and they have critical roles in resource management, urbanization, protection of soils and the environment, and enhancing sustainable development. The literature has heavily utilized multispectral spatiotemporal satellite data alongside advanced machine learning algorithms to monitor and predict LULC changes. This study analyzes and compares LULC changes across various governorates (provinces) of the Sultanate of Oman from 2016 to 2021 using annual time steps. For the chosen region, multispectral spatiotemporal data were acquired from the open-source Sentinel-2 satellite dataset. Supervised machine learning algorithms were used to train and classify different land covers, such as water bodies, crops, urban, etc. The constructed model was subsequently applied within the study region, allowing for an effective comparative evaluation of LULC changes within the given timeframe.