Land use/land cover of the Palestinian Territories1994- 2003

Abstract :
The lack of national land cover classification system in Palestine motivated the Palestinians to adapt a system suitable for remotely sensed data. The European CORINE Land cover classification system has been chosen as a base for the classification system applied on the research. This system is a continental system being applied in many Mediterranean rather than European countries whose land cover is similar to that in Palestine. Bearing in mind the unique characteristics of land cover of Palestine, modifications of CORINE were done to meet the national requirements by the addition of a fourth level of classification.
The literature survey of land use / land cover studies reveals the fact that there is a lack of detailed and comprehensive land cover mapping. But, since the establishment of the Palestine National Authority (PNA) many governmental and NGOs has paid more attention to this important tool of planning and some studies related to this field were published.

The Palestinian West Bank and Gaza governorates is a country with a population of about 3.35 million people(PCBS, projected population2003) and a total area of 5654 km2. It has a wide spectrum of land use/land cover due to the unique human influence related to its political situation and to the diversity of land resources and climate.

The aim of the research is to investigate land use/land cover classification system for the Palestinian territories, and to show changes in landuse/landcover in the period between the periods (1994-2003). Data on land use/land cover is necessary for the Environment policy as well as for other policies such as Regional Development and Agriculture. At the same time it provides one of the basic inputs for the production of more complex information on other themes (soil erosion, pollutant emission into the air by the vegetation, etc.).This study is a step forward towards having a better planning of environmental policy as well as a better land use and land resources management.

This research was accomplished by a comprehensive data analysis utilizing computer aided analysis and visual interpretation for new, complete covers of LANDSAT, SPOT and IKONUS satellite images; Satellite born data was integrated with data extracted from new aerial photos which cover most of the West Bank. An intensive program of field checks was applied to validate the remotely sensed data; ancillary data such as topographic maps and statistical information were helpful.

Based on the results obtained from the analysis, the percentage of built up area was increased from 8.1% in 1994 to 9.4% in 2003, and the percentage of agricultural land was decreases from 38.4% in 1994 to 35% in 2003.